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Tales of Adventure 


COL. R. 


BY 

H. SAVAGE 

n 


Author of “My Official Wife,” “An Exile from 
London,” etc. 




NEW YORK 

THE HOME PUBLISHING CO. 

L- 






Copyright 1897 
Copyright 1900 
By A. C. Guntkr 
All rights reserved 


74297 . 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

An Awkward Meeting i 

Lost in Grizzly Canyon 23 

The Pool of Death 43 

The Pirate of Williams Landing 63 

The White Indian 83 

Snowed In I'D! 

With the Caribs off Ruatan Island 121 

Fighting the Tiger 139 

A Hunt in Corea 155 

Boy Against Grizzly 177 

Why the Mail Came Late 193 

The Secret of Dr. Harper’s Cabinet 211 

The Mystery of Sergeant Armand Caire 229 

How We Court-martialed Sergeant Maloney 247 













AN AWKWARD MEETINQ 


BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 








AN AWKWARD MEETING. 


I CAN look back now and see the anxious faces 
of a score of hardy Californians gathered around 
the fireplace of a huge log cabin, on the banks of 
Soquel Creek, in that memorable winter of sixty- 
two.” 

Forty days and forty nights of unexampled tem- 
pest and storm had realized the worst anticipa- 
tions of property owners, and disaster and ruin 
reigned over the whole Golden State ! The cap- 
ital city, Sacramento, was inundated, all business 
was paralyzed in these ante-railroad days, the 
crops of the interior valleys were destroyed, the 
broad plains covered with dying herds, and, every 
water runlet of the State was a raging river. 

Fenced in with the Sierra Nevadas and the 
Coast Range, with a loop of mountains closing 
the North and South, California was isolated. 
Travel was impossible, the mails were cut off, 
stage roads were obliterated, and only a few 
steamers moving on the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin, kept up a semblance of commercial move- 
ment. 

Mining was impossible in the Sierras, and for- 


2 AN AWKWARD MEETING 

tunes were swept away by the remorseless and 
vindictive floods. With desperate efforts the 
eastern telegraph and overland mails were kept 
partly open, and, to the loyalists of a State about 
evenly divided between North and South, the de- 
pressing news of continued Union disasters 
brought the last touch of misery to stern men, 
almost ready to “ throw up the sponge.” 

•To the Committee on Ways and Means gathered 
around that blazing hearth, the council of the 
night was a momentous one. A dozen buildings, 
with an extensive sawmill, were hemmed in at the 
forks of Soquel and Williams Creeks, in the Santa 
Cruz mountains. The huge forty-foot mill wheel 
was anchored to the mill and a dozen huge red- 
woods, with chains, cables, and all available fast- 
enings. 

The proprietor’s pretty cottage contained his 
^mily of a wife and two younger children, who 
had watched in these days of storm their beautiful 
gardens swept away, in dismay. To the west, 
Soquel Creek, a purling trout stream, was now 
running fifty feet deep, and the hugest iron-clad 
might have been swept away like a lost buoy, on 
that raging yellow flood. The coast Sierras rise 
up five thousand feet on that side, barring off 
help from Santa Clara Valley forty miles away. 
To the east, the great spurs of the same Sierras 
rose up in awful majesty, barring off any aid from 
the Pajaro Valleys. 

It was but,. ten miles to the sea, at the little 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


3 


port of Soquel, on Santa Cruz Bay, but no human 
ingenuity could devise a means of crossing the 
doubled waters of the creeks to the south. 

To the north, ending at the little plateau, where 
the twenty workmen and their employer’s family 
were beleaguered, was a spinal ridge, extending 
between the two creeks, and losing itself after 
twenty miles in the huge natural fortifications of 
grim Loma Prieta, thirty miles away. 

The canyons and inner regions of Santa Cruz 
County were settled then only by a few uncouth 
Western and Southwestern squatters, who, at this 
period, were waging a sporadic private war, with 
revolver and rifle, and finishing up quarrels, begun 
years before on the Missouri and Kansas bounda- 
ries. A wild, lonely region was the great Soquel 
Augmentacion Ranch, a territory large enough for 
a foreign duke’s domain. It stretched from Wat- 
sonville to Loma Prieta, from the little village of 
Soquel, near the sea, to the summit of the San 
Jose divide. 

Nature’s boldest handiwork was seen in this 
miniature Switzerland, and the hills and canyons 
were clad with the forest primeval. Huge red- 
woods, magnificent firs and oaks, superb ma- 
dronas, pines and cottonwoods, maples and stone 
pines were the unspoiled riches of this beautiful 
solitude. The little clearings were occupied by 
the Pike County marauders and their northwest- 
ern foes, the dim forest arches ” hid the abun- 
dant game of a hunter’s paradise, and the creeks 


4 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


teemed with salmon and delicious trout. To a 
city boy, released from academic toil, this wild re- 
gion was a paradise of wonders. From fourteen 
to sixteen, I found nature’s magic in the breath 
of these mountains, the superb ozone-laden air of 
the dim canyons. A wonderful Nimrod and a 
mighty hunter before the Lord,” was Johnny 
White, the Missouri boy of eighteen, who was my 
“ dhuine-wassail,” and taught me every art of 
woodcraft. One of seven sons, who nearly all 
perished by border feud, or who drifted east to 
get killed with “ Pop Price ” in old Missouri. He 
knew every bit of forest lore, and made me as good 
a mountaineer, and finally, even a bit better rifle 
shot than himself. 

He taught me the arts of the shekarry ” which 
have stood me in stead, in later years, over four 
continents, and half the time we were absent from 
our domicils, camping in the untracked forest. 

It was the golden flood tide of youth, when I 
had “ time to burn,” and the huge rancho seemed 
to me to be only a hunting park for my especial 
benefit, and Johnny White, my man Friday. I 
bribed him with stores of ammunition and stray 
half dollars to desert all useful pursuits and, as he 
expressed it, “ make a man of me.” 

I can see this tow-headed borderer yet, toasting 
venison on a ramrod, by the fire, in our little biv- 
ouac, or broiling the trout that we had twitched 
from the pools, while I lay upon the drifted leaves 
and read to him Ivanhoe,” or bits of the sad mis- 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


5 


adventures of Philip W akem and rich- hearted Mag- 
gie Tulliver, from a stray copy of the “ Mill on 
the Floss.” Johnny and 1 agreed on hunting as 
the main object of man’s career here below, with 
riding a bucking horse, as an extra touch to a 
polite education, but, he insisted that I should 
skip all, but the fighting parts ” of the books — 
and —alas ! I went in for sentiment even then ! 
But, we compromised on “ Charley O’Malley ” ! 
In return for my literary tuition, he taught me to 
play poker, California Jack, and to sing his reper- 
toire of quaint old Missouri ballads and songs of 
the frontier squatters. I recall “ Barbara Allen,” 
and, a doleful lament over the death of Mike 
Fink, the Boatman.” If Johnny has sought the 
other shores, peace to his ashes ! He was to me 
a human marvel, for he could make biscuits, and 
I have often watched him, with gnawing pangs of 
envy, for I never crossed that pons asinorum. My 
culinary career stopped at flap-jacks. I stole bot- 
tles of molasses from the family stores to reward 
Johnny White for “extra effort,” and, with that 
succulent unguent, we did succeed in making 
way with his “short-range,” dead-shot, camp- 
made hot bombshells. 

On the particular night of the conference in the 
log cabin, I was an eager listener. The one head 
of a family was comforting his frightened house- 
hold, for without, the storm howled in all its fury. 

The long rains had loosened the soil upon the 
mountain sides, and at intervals of a few minutes, 


6 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


the heaviest monster trees came sliding down the 
steep slopes, falling over into the canyons with 
the thundering boom of Gettysburg’s artillery. 
The great double log cabin was builded of squared 
logs, eighteen inches thick, and heavily pinned at 
the corners. The triple-laid roof of ^‘shakes” 
was proof against the wildest storms of this snow- 
less land, and the one burning question before the 
council was that of food. 

It was a serious one, for with the exception of 
a few family supplies in the proprietor’s cottage 
the larder was empty, only a half-barrel of salt 
pork remaining. The chicken, sheep, and pigs of 
the little delta had disappeared in the four weeks’ 
siege. The fifty oxen of the mill had been swept 
away by the flood or lain down sadly to drown 
in the flooded corrals. The two huge stacks of 
hay garnered up had gone “down the river” with 
the barns. A pretty cow had been slaughtered, 
and now two pet dogs and a canary bird were 
the only live animals upon the cut-off delta. The 
flour was almost exhausted and twenty brawny 
lumbermen have “ growing appetites.” 

The disheartened proprietor had seen a fortune 
in sawed lumber whirled away down the insatiate 
flood. Only one horse remained of all the stock. 
The mill was filled solid with stones and gravel, 
and the wheel had to be later dug out of fifteen 
feet of concrete. The river bed for a mile had to 
be lowered to begin operations when all the water 
buckets of the gods were emptied. 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


7 


But, money loss, business ruin, and family trou 
bles paled before the cold practical question of 
possible starvation. The terrific mountains tow- 
ered up behind to the north. It was eighty miles 
across two mountain ranges with impassable tor- 
rents to Los Gatos. None but the bravest moun- 
taineers could hope to ever breast these trackless 
hills in good weather, and now the greasy chap- 
paral clasped everything with hooked thorns. 
The refined wife of the mill-owner, the two tender 
children prisoned there, were hostages to fortune. 

The council was a long and earnest one. For 
days, attempts had been made to open communi- 
cation with the tribe of Whites on the west bank 
of the now mighty Soquel. Old “ Pop White,” 
bare-breasted and nimble at seventy-five, was seen 
across the raging flood with his stalwart guerrilla 
guard, Morris,” “ Abe,” Luther,” “ Bill,” 
“ Sam,” Dan’l,” and last but not least, that admir- 
able Crichton of all youthful Pikes,” the tow- 
headed dead-shot Johnny. 

Our whole party, headed by Dad ” Hall, the 
head sawyer, had exhausted every trick and arti- 
fice in vain attempts to open communication, un- 
til finally, Johnny the hunter shot over a wiping 
stick from his big-bore, Mississippi yager, to the 
cleft, in the head of which, was attached a note 
scrawled upon an old bit of newspaper and 
wrapped up in a bit of buckskin. 

There was a chorus of cheers as I read out the 
words, ‘'We have fifty fifty-pound bags of flour, 


AWKWAkD MkkTiNG 


our winter food. If you can find a place above 
you, to cross the Soquel, we will pack the flour 
up there on our horses, and you can bring what 
you want down on your side. Somebody must 
go up the mountain, and come down along your 
side of the river. There may be a log jam or a 
bridge of trees somewhere. That’s the only chance 
to get anything over to you. The creek will not 
be fordable for four weeks yet.” 

It took us several hours to exchange our mes- 
sages, and the whole circle, gathered around the 
fire on that wild winter night, were busied with the 
selection of a first pioneer to reconnoiter the great 
canyon of the Soquel. 

The twenty men were a strangely assorted 
gang, though living in brotherly peace. The log- 
gers and axemen were Maine and Michigan men. 
The teamsters were Missourians. An old ex- 
French Zouave, a cook of the same giddy race, 
and three or four mechanics, made up a pretty fair 
lot of workmen. Even then, the fierce passions 
of the war were kindling bitter animosities. Big 
Jim Hall died later, a captain before Atlanta, and 
the good-humored young fellow who made me an 
expert trout catcher stole away to cross the Gila 
desert and become a bloodthirsty guerrilla, whose 
very name made Union officers tremble behind 
their lines of sentinels. 

The old cabin has crumbled to ruin, the very 
mills have disappeared, and the face of nature is 
changed to-day— but on that March night of 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


9 


“ sixty-two ” it was a Bret Harte throng which 
listened to every man’s proposals. The two great 
tables were cleared off; one was covered with 
old weeklies and the “illustrated journals,” and 
at the other, a squad of the 61ite played euchre 
and dropped a wisely put point now and then, 
through the clouds of tobacco smoke. A hearty, 
cheery, good-humored band of fellows they were, 
and not a blow nor a drunken spree had marked 
the past two years. 

“ Long Eben” Wright, the neatest axeman who 
ever dropped a two-hundred foot redwood just 
on the line for loading, drawled out at last, “ Why 
don’t ye send him ! ” pointing toward me, with a 
calloused thumb. “ He’s roved over every inch 
of these yere mountains ; he’s feared o’ nothing. 
He’s strong and light o’ foot. He kin make the 
trip in half the time we heavier men kin. I sus- 
picion we’ll all have to take the tramp, and each 
of us pack a sack of flour back on our shoulders. 
I carried one four hundred miles up the Fraser 
River in fifty-eight. I kin do it ag’in.” 

“Eben, ye’re right! ” said Big Jim Hall, refill- 
ing his pipe. “ The boy must keep on the highest 
ground and skirt the whole river. I’m feared the 
river has cut into the banks along our side, so the 
horse could not get up, along our side. Let him 
find a log jam or a tree bridge, even if it’s ten 
miles up. We must do something for the boss. 
He is ruined, as it is. We are eating him out of 
house and home. 


JO an awkward meeting 

The Whites have got plenty of horses. If we 
find a place, they can pack ten or twenty sacks of 
flour up there, and Fll marshal the hull detach- 
ment, and we will pack it down the ridge, and we 
can make a shift for three or four weeks more.” 

“ Yes,” said Billy James, “and, the Whites can 
get down to Porter’s store at Socjuel, and fetch us 
up some supplies. I vote that we all put in a 
month’s pay, and make a present of it to the boss, 
for our keep.” The generous proposition was 
loudly applauded, and passed “ nem cony 

In half an hour, I had received the personal 
counsels of the whole Log Cabin Club. My heart 
bounded with pride at being selected as the fitting 
one for the quest. A paternal sanction was easily 
gained and the remainder of the evening was 
passed in preparations for an early departure. 

The good-humored help of the entire party was 
offered to me. A well-greased pair of logger’s 
boots, a double jeans hunting jerkin, a pair of 
corduroy trousers, were my climbing clothes, 
while a hunter’s pouch carried ammunition and a 
belt with revolver and bowie knife completed the 
outfit. My pride was at its height, when Big Jim 
Hall said, “You can take my Colt’s revolving 
rifle.” This privilege had hitherto been denied 
me, and such deer, wild cats, and coyote as I had 
killed had been slaughtered with a beautiful old 
muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle, which I had 
learned to shoot with microscopic accuracy. 

“Ye might run against something up there, 


AN AWKWARB MEETING 


II 


boy,” kindly said Hall, as he tossed over the bullet 
molds : “ Make up twenty or thirty slugs and 
bullets ! ” No happier lad was alive in all Cali- 
fornia’s brown hills than I as I knelt at the glow- 
ing hearth, and turned out the slugs and round 
balls from the double mold. The bright-faced 
young fellow who helped me, in his cheery way, 
lived to fire more than the score of balls we cast 
into the hearts of blue-clad soldiers, and poor 
genial old Jim Hall, dozing over his paper, little 
dreamed of the red death waiting him at Peach 
Tree Creek two years later. 

The very first person awake on the water-be- 
leaguered delta was myself, and a score of affec- 
tionate suggestions followed me to the door, as I 
grasped the well-oiled Colt’s rifle, and cast a serious 
glance at the huge ridge towering above me, with 
its giant trees swaying loosely in the wet wind 
gusts. A good-bye to father and mother had 
been hastened with the wild unrest of a boyish 
heart, and it was on the threshold of the old cabin 
that Francois, the French Canadian cook, stopped 
me, Spose you get ketched out over night — good 
thing to have some eat ! ” he cried, handing me a 
neat little haversack, made of a salt bag, and filled 
with the now precious cold biscuit and fried salt 
pork. His words seemed ominous, and I turned 
back to hide a box of matches in the inner pocket 
of my hunting shirt, having first dropped them in 
a light tin pepper-box. 

In the gray light of the morning,! strode away, 


12 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


leaving the Log Cabin Club to their varied kill- 
time ” occupations. Some were making furniture, 
some hewing out ox yokes, others mounting 
powder horns, the Card Club was holding its 
never-ending session, and braiding whiplashes, 
buckskin tanning, fishing-rod making, and a dozen 
simple arts were all in vogue. 

Before me, lay a task of considerable difficulty. 
The wooded ridge rose to six or eight hundred 
feet and ran along a half a mile to a bold, bald, 
round bluff of a thousand feet in height, this 
second ascent leading to a steep ridge four or 
five miles long, with gloomy plateaus of the 
heaviest and densest uncut timber, and then, the 
great mountain rose sweeping far away, in rocky 
knolls and timbered patches, toward Loma Prieta, 
twenty miles away. 

In the pride of my selection ‘‘by unanimous 
consent,” I had dismissed all personal considera- 
tions. To be trusted, to be considered worthy of 
the unusual fatigue and the responsibility, was in 
itself the honor of the whole writer’s episode. And, 
with my rifle lightly poised, I clambered steadily 
along, under the swaying trees, until an hour’s 
climbing brought me to the base of the great bald 
bluff. 

The fact suddenly dawned upon me, then, that 
mountain forays with Johnny White’s cheerful 
face at my side were different from this lonely 
quest. For the woods were silent. No song of 
bird, no scream of jay, no chatter of cheerful 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


13 


squirrel enlivened the ghastly silence broken now 
only by the sighing of the wind and the cold plash 
of showers of water, lightly shaken from out the 
gusty pines. I had avoided the trail along the 
summit of the ridge, as I skirted the side low 
enough to keep the great yellow flood in sight, 
roaring along in the Soquel ravine below. 

Great uprooted trees were to be seen whirled 
along on the wild flood like chips, and hastening 
shoreward with a velocity equal to that of a fast 
steamboat. There was no sign of any log jam or 
crossing in the first two or three miles. My spirits 
sank as I neared the great bald bluff, and I ex- 
perienced a distinct shock on gazing down into 
the trail which I had resumed and observing the 
perfectly fresh tracks of a giant grizzly bear ! 
Johnny White and myself had often debated the 
possibility of such a rencontre, and, with blanched 
cheeks, we had deferred the question of what we 
would do. But, my teeth chattered as I observed 
the platter-shaped tracks a foot long, with the 
heel prints in the soft mud of the bare trail un- 
affected as yet by the drizzling gusts. And the 
spoor was leading directly to the bluff I was to 
climb. 

Then, with a surge away from the heart, my 
blood left me, and I realized that the grim forests 
were weird and lonely in all the desolation of the 
long-continued storm. A rising wind sent dried 
limbs dropping around in a shower, and I refuged 
near a huge trunk, whose burned-out cavity might 


14 


an awkward meeting 


have invited me to rest longer but for that bear. It 
was now near nine o’clock, and I cautiously ap- 
proached the cliff, rifle in hand, and at a ready. I 
had a dozen times debated the idea of turning back, 
but the false pride of a hot-hearted boy restrained 
me. The side-hills were covered with rotten, yel- 
low-pine needles, my feet slipped from under me, 
and the seriousness of my quest came suddenly 
upon me. “If”— but I dared not continue. The 
rain began to fall, and, with my eye upon the pain- 
fully distinct grizzly tracks, I approached the cliff. 

Suddenly I paused in astonishment, for a gaping 
rocky chasm lay between me and the trail, which 
could be seen zigzagging across the cliff five hun- 
dred feet above. A giant landslide had carried 
the whole face of the bald mountain away east- 
wardly into Williams Creek, a thousand feet 
below. It was a case of “ No thoroughfare ! ” My 
only course was to drop down to the western side, 
and skirt along the hill below the chasm, along the 
Soquel, keeping its course in sight, and try to rise 
again to the ridge beyond the gaping chasm. To 
my inexpressible delight, the bear had turned off 
to the right and plunged down into the glen of 
Williams Creek, to which shades the acorns and 
wild cherries always invited Ursus ferox Ameri- 
canis. 

It was an hour later when I reached a jutting 
rock, a mile north of the break in the trail. I was 
beginning to feel chafed and wet through. The 
revolver belt and the two pouches galled me ; the 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


15 


coveted beautiful six-shooting rifle was seemingly 
fifty pounds in weight. But, I had given the 
grizzly the slip ! I could see the whole course of 
the Soquel River, and, four or five miles to the 
north, I could see a dark line upon the yellow 
flood, which appeared to be stationary, and 
promised a gigantic jam of the great trees. Weak 
and weary, I struggled along, my mind fired with 
the hope of a final success. I had not seen a single 
animal. The gray skies were darkened, the cold 
gusts of rain drove in my face, and I began to lose 
my nerve in the weird, ghastly forest. Keeping 
my eyes fixed on the point where I could see the 
black line of the log jam, I struggled along, not 
daring to confess that the place was at least ten 
miles from the mills. I began to sing, to talk to 
myself, to chatter, as I dragged along. 

There were missteps which sent me sliding 
dozens of feet down the slippery hillsides. My 
hands were cold as ice, my brow burning, and as 
I at last consulted my watch, I found it was three 
o’clock before I had skirted the unfamiliar moun- 
tainside and arrived on the side of the third spur 
of mountain, abreast of the obstruction in the river, 
and about a thousand feet above it. 

Ranging around till I found an open place in the 
trees, I gazed long and eagerly. There appeared 
to be fifty or more great trees, branches and all ' 
interlaced, making a practical crossing, the only one 
in ten miles. With a sinking heart, I prepared to 
descend into the canyon of the Soquel, for I had 


1 6 AN AWKWARD MEETING 

suddenly realized that I would not be able to re- 
trace my steps before dark night. T o travel the 
fearful road I had come was impossible, without all 
my energies and the clearest daylight, in fashion, 
for the forty days of the terrible visitation. 

I stumbled along, weak and weary, determined 
to verify the fact of a practicable passage of the 
surging river below, and, casting my eyes about 
for some place to refuge myself during the night 
I had frankly abandoned all ideas of personal 
bravery and I deeply regretted by boyish foolish- 
ness. I had never listened to the suggestion of a 
careful soul that “two heads were better than 
one,” and I felt the singular demoralization coming 
from my untried youth and the jarring solitude of 
the dismal woods. How gay in the hunting 
forays with Johnny White at my side were these 
now untenanted wastes! The possibility of meet- 
ing the giant grizzly on the ridge returned again 
and again. My limbs were stiff and sore, and I 
wondered if any prowling, hunger-maddened 
animal could follow my trail over the moist 
ground. 

But, I hastened before the shades of night fell to 
examine the great log jam, now plainly visible. I 
would then return to the hillside, and, trying to 
find a hollow tree, make a store of dry branches for 
a fire to affright any hostile beast. 

With nervous desperation, I plunged down the 
hillside, and, at last, reached the gravelly banks 
fifty feet above the huge tangle of uprooted trees. 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 17 

Even in my growing demoralization, 1 joyed to 
see that great trees, sweeping down in the current 
on either side, had interlaced their branches, and 
that other huge logs and uprooted trees in middle 
current had formed a splendid and perfectly prac- 
ticable crossing. One huge redwood bound the 
whole, its graceful green limbs arching in the air 
above the great red trunk 

I was anxious to verify the possibility of cross- 
ing, and to be able to report that I had been the 
only one of the beleaguered dwellers on the 
Delta to touch the farther shore of the Soquel in 
five long weeks, and so, cautiously, I climbed out, 
picking my way along over the raging flood, 
whose yellow surge tore past in angry white bub- 
bling flakes of foam. 

Not a bird, not a squirrel, not a single rabbit, — 
nothing of life had I seen in the lonely day, save 
one great gray eagle wheeling his flight far above 
me, shining dark against the leaden, lowering 
clouds. 

I was in mid-stream, parting the pliant branches 
with one hand, and still clutching the six-shooting 
rifle with the other, when I suddenly saw a huge 
yellow body parting the green redwood branches 
not ten yards from me. 

A pair of glaring green eyes shone out, and the 
struggling animal crouched, vainly clutching at 
the greasy redwood bark for a spring. 

One moment I gasped in the sudden surprise, 
and then I knew my foe, for I could see the white 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


i8 

patch under the breast of the huge California 
lion as it vainly essayed to spring. 

There was no room for the giant feline to turn, 
and its feet were bruised and cut with the slippery, 
rain-drenched river gravel. 

Holding the Colt’s rifle steadily on the white 
breast patch, I fired, with the deliberation born of 
a thorough knowledge of my danger. The heavy 
ring of the rifle was answered by a scream of wild 
ferocity, as the big puma fell sideways and 
clutched desperately with its forepaws at the 
nearest limbs. I could see the whole broadside of 
the animal, and I steadily held on the white line 
under its sleek brown side, and then, sent a second 
slug crashing into the quivering mass of sinews. 

1 stepped cautiously back as the animal tore and 
bit vainly at the sheathing bark of the great tree, 
then one huge paw relaxed, and the wounded 
beast clung desperately with the other. The 
rounded head was turned toward me, and, I forgot 
to argue upon the possibility of the beast swim- 
ming ! 

I had revolved the barrel of the rifle for the 
third time, and I noted with joy that the brute 
seemed to be sinking lower in the water on the 
down-river side of the huge log. I drew up the 
gun and aimed directly behind the fore-shoulder- 
When the smoke cleared away, I saw once or 
twice the gleam of white and yellow, as the car- 
cass was swiftly whirled away down stream. 

Then, smitten with some sudden haste, I picked 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


19 


my way back to the eastern shore, without finish, 
ing the easy transit. There was yet light enough 
for me to follow my trail back to a bald point 
where a forest fire had hollowed out a dozen great 
redwoods still standing. 

Within the hollows were pieces of burned 
branches and fragments. I cleared away the in- 
terior of one of these, and in half an hour had 
kindled a glowing fire. I selected strong branches 
and stones, with bits of rotted logs, to make me a 
breast-high barricade. 

Reloading my rifle, I warmed the cold pork 
and divided my scanty store into two meals. 
Then, walking around my fire, I dried myself 
partly, and finally retired within the barricade 
which I had builded in front of my impromptu 
bedroom. The sigh of the night winds, the plash 
of the occasional rain, lulled me to sleep, and sheer 
fatigue overcame all my nervous scruples. It was 
long after daylight when I awoke, but I lost no 
time in hastening away on the return trip. 

Munching my slender rations as I strode along, 
I marched with all the high pride of success in 
my lightening heels. The topographical experi- 
ence of the day before enabled me to skirt the 
mountain sides at a reasonable distance above the 
chasms along the river, and gradually rise to the 
spinal ridge leading down to the V-shaped plateau 
within the two rivers. 

Covered with ashes from my tree-hollow bed, 
weary, and yet triumphant, I dragged my tired 


20 


AN AWKWARD MEETING 


feet down along the ridge to the sawmills, arriv- 
ing about two o’clock. There was no fatted calf 
to kill, but my return prevented a search party. 
The rifle line of signaling was soon set at work, 
and, two days later, the “ Castle Perilous ” was 
relieved by means of the train of flour-carrying 
lumbermen. From that, till the end of the storm, 
and the abating of the waters, the ordinary com- 
forts of life were procured, and, in a month, the 
floods left us, the stern struggle against financial 
ruin supplanting the grim possibilities of starva- 
tion. 

My yellow-coated friend, the giant puma, was 
discovered, in a decidedly damaged condition, 
and very much the worse for wear, when the 
waters receded, the carcass being entangled in a 
drift some five miles below, where he gave me 
decidedly the most awkward meeting of my life. 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 




LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


The ambrosial breath of morning was drawing 
through the forest arches of Soquel Creek as I 
turned my head, on the ridge, for a last look at 
the old sawmill lying far below me. 

Crisp and clear, the October morning air thrilled 
my pulses like strong, new wine. The fragrance 
of the balsam pine mingled with the wind-blown 
scent of the upland fields, where old Pappy White’s 
kine browsed upon his fifty-acre clearing. 

It was a morning of mornings in the Californian 
coast range, and the Santa Cruz woods were ring- 
ing with all the awakened life of the virgin forest. 

At the end of the long half-mile spinal ridge, two 
young hunters prudently halted to tighten their 
belts and readjust the packs, before braving the 
toilsome ascent of Bald Bluff. 

Johnny White and I had waited eagerly for this 
dark of the moon. How we had chafed under 
that silvery moonlight, which tempted forth the 
acorn-fattened bucks to prance gaily at night 
along the slopes of the untenanted mountain spurs 
above us. 

For, in that weary fortnight, both giant buck 
and sleek doe sought their noonday repose in the 
dense hazel coppices of the canyons, and neither 
at dawn nor dusk could the graceful quarry be 
found around the pools and springs where we had 


24 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


SO often lain perdu, with beating hearts and ready 
rifles. 

Around old man White’s cabin, stray cattle (often 
personally conducted) clustered with amazing 
rapidity of numerical growth. 

A drove of sheep, a band of hogs, and many 
horses of sadly-varying brands pastured in the 
openings near the giant spring, by whose cooling 
flood, the ancient Ishmaelite had set up his Lares 
and Penates. 

But, when the colts and cattle, even the sheep, 
were, one by one, carried off by mountain lions, or 
found with their necks broken by one fell blow 
of the mighty paw of the shaggy monsters who 
ruled the shadows of Loma Prieta, it beat Pappy 
White’s scheme of mountain pasturage at once ! 

“ That hy ar mounting s jest a U ar garden^' resent- 
fully growled the old man, ruefully contemplating 
the loss of the caught-up stock which he had 
desired to judiciously shield from ‘‘the public view.” 

It was a peculiar freemasonry which had caused 
me, a city bred lad of sixteen, to be adopted into 
the rough coterie of the “ Whites.” My wel- 
come came from a careless frontier hospitality, as 
well as the colorable permission of the presence of 
a son of one of the real proprietors of the huge 
rancho, on their regular hunting forays. 

The “ Whites ” were useful to my father, in so 
far as they kept other red-handed squatters off, 
having driven away their nearest enemies, the 
“Browns,” into a gulch five miles to the west, 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


25 


after two lonely graves had been filled, and the 
vaulted redwoods had echoed back the sound of 
the murderer’s rifle. 

On the eve of this particular hunting foray, I 
had camped in the homely lodge of the Whites. 
Shock-headed Johnny” and I had duly melted 
lead, and, with scorched fingers, run many bullets. 
Our simple knapsacks were furnished with a 
goodly store of Mammy White’s saleratus biscuits, 
the powder-flasks were all filled, and the treasured 
“Eley double water-proof ” caps, with a precious 
stock of matches, were hidden away for the three 
nights’ camping tour. Grease and buckskin patch- 
ings, all the outfit of a hunter of these muzzle- 
loading, prehistoric days,were carefully bestowed. 

There was a quaver in dear old Mammy White’s 
voice as she bade her Benjamin a fond good-night. 
“ Johnny^ dorUt you be running into none of them 
b'ars dens up there f the aged matron continued. 

The lean young hunter’s eye gleamed with pride 
as the old man broke a constrained silence. 
“ Mammy White, none of my boys will run from 
ary beast or b’ar in them thar woods! An’ 
Johnny’s a better shot to-day than even our Luther T 
This was praise from Sir Hubert ! 

For all this, as Johnny White and I grimly 
breasted the bald hill leading to the second of 
three gigantic upraises on this October morning, 
we tacitly avoided the subject of ‘'them pesky 
b’ar,” as the old man termed the giant brutes who 
had devoured his dubiously gathered up “ stock,” 


26 


lost in grizzly canyon 


The brightest dream of old man White’s 
chequered career faded when the scheme of a free 
ranch, wherein to fatten estrayed stock and de- 
velop the nucleus into a patriarchal herd, came 
to naught by the merciless onslaught of the Santa 
Cruz grizzlies. 

True, “Morris” and “Loot” had recouped a 
fifty dollars now and then, in slaying a mountain 
monster, for the hide, meat, the grease and gall, 
all found ready customers. 

But, “b’ar” slaying without a good pack of 
dogs, and trusting to a single shot, with perhaps 
a revolver finale, was, after all, a hazardous way 
of gaining the yellow gold, even though a certain 
throb of revenge entered as an “unearned incre- 
ment ” of fierce joy. 

My muscles were now well attuned to mountain 
climbing, and so, with frequent halts and judicious 
zigzags, we attained the upland summits by noon. 

It was here, at our noontide luncheon, that my 
companion first unfolded a plan of daring proposed 
adventure. The main Soquel Creek ran for ten 
miles from the mills due north, and then turned 
eastwardly to its source in the Loma Prieta. 

The little mill-fork on the other side ended at 
the bend of the main ridge, where some irregular 
openings of a thousand acres had afforded us, 
heretofore, our deer-stalking grounds. 

But, on this memorable day, Johnny fairly took 
my breath away. 

It appeared that Luther (his pet brother) had 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


27 


ventured alone far eastwardly, and had found an 
abundance of deer, hitherto unstalked, on the far- 
ther ridge, to the east of the little mill creek ! 

With a most judicious slyness, ‘'Loot ” had con- 
cealed the news of his find from his active-minded 
brethren, and so, in several lucky trips, had easily 
slain and packed in venison enough to purvey him 
that new silver-mounted Kentucky rifle which was 
the pride of Soquel Gulch ! 

Familiarity with our old range had made me 
judiciously brave upon the well-known “stamping 
grounds,’’ the scene of two-score hunting trips; 
but, I was vaguely discomforted at hearing of our 
projected foray. 

Near to civilization, John White looked up to 
me as the “glass of fashion and the mould of 
form.” 

But, in the dim arches of the woods, however, he 
was the unchallenged leader, and his forest lore 
fairly appalled me ! 

So, I took on fresh heart when he confided to 
me that “ Luther ” had dimly blazed a trail down 
along the east ridge, to where easy descent was 
afforded to the main Soquel ! Said Johnny, play- 
ing with the set triggers of his rifle, “ Henry, if we 
kill some deer. I’ll go down home and get a pony 
and we can pack the venison in ! ” 

And If I faintly hazarded. 

“You kin surely camp out one night alone!” 
he simply said, with a fine air of unconcern 1 

Now, to the Whites, the slain deer represented 


28 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


seven to ten dollars each ; to me, only a hunter’s 
glory and the juicy haunch ! 

The secret of the blind trail fascinated me, how- 
ever, and so I forgot all the responsibility of my 
lonely picket, as we eagerly plodded along to the 
turn-off. 

It was two hours before sunset when we had 
passed out beyond our eastern range-marks into 
the great forest which swept away from the head 
of the divide to Bates’ Mill and Brady’s — pre- 
sumably fifteen and twenty miles to the east and 
southeast. 

We had ‘‘started up” various animals, but, 
with due caution, had reserved all our ammunition. 

Bevies of quail, nests of squirrel, a saucily-lin- 
gering wildcat, and even a rare mountain condor, 
resting from his exploration of the blue empy- 
rean, had been regretfully abandoned, for we 
feared to alarm the roving five-pronged bucks of 
which we had feverishly dreamed the night before. 

It was with a feeling of excitement that we, at 
last, discovered Luther’s blazed trail leading from 
three giant fires crowning a lonely, rocky mound, 
down eastwardly along the wooded ridge where 
trees gleamed now with the sunset gold. 

I listened breathlessly to Johnny’s story of three 
open “peraras,” and a sedgy lagoon, a mile or 
two away, where there were always “dead 
oodles” of deer, after the secret report of the 
wily Luther. 

It was still a fine light for the horn back-sights 


LOST IN GRI22LY CANYON 


29 


and gleaming silver front-sights of our Ken- 
tuckies, as, with pride, my conductor led me out 
into the first little prairie. 

Accurately describing the situation of the three 
openings, and, with a given rendezvous at the 
pool of the sedgy lagoon beyond, we finally sep- 
arated, after the last solemn promise not to shoot 
at each other. My heart beat loudly as I found 
myself, at last, alone in this terra incognito. 

' Loosening the navy five-shooter which I carried 
in my belt, I stalked along on the western side of 
the three irregular prairies, while my comrade 
took the eastern fringes of the silent openings. 

I was busied with my loneliness, until the 
hunter’s instinct came back, when I rounded a 
clump of jack oaks and saw down below me a 
little dell, where the luxuriant sedges announced a 
gurgling spring. 

I cast one anxious glance around in the evening 
stillness. Only the boom of a mountain owl in the 
canyon broke the “impressive” silence. 

Suddenly there was the noisy whirr of a flock of 
plumed quail, as a gallant buck trotted majesti- 
cally out of the bosky foliage, and then, throwing 
up his antlered head, gazed anxiously up at the 
coppice where I was hidden. 

He stood, full breast on, and I steadied my 
ready rifle against a tree. 

Would he never turn and give me the “ broads 
side?” Slowly the magnificent animal wheeled, 
and, then, I drew a sure bead on him at eighty yards. 


30 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


At the very last moment, I lowered the muzzle 
till I caught the silver glint of the front sight upon 
the white line under those swelling shoulders. 

One steady touch of the hair trigger, and the 
forest king pitched forward convulsively, falling 
prone upon his side! I tossed my gun wildly 
away, and as I ran down, hunting knife in hand, I 
heard the ringing crack of Johnny’s rifle, far away 
to the east 1 

I was standing watching the dying struggles of 
the superb quarry, as my companion’s piece spoke 
again. 

Well I knew Johnny’s device for throwing in a 
prepared charge, dropping a lone ball without 
patching, and firing again in ten seconds ! I has- 
tened to “ draw ” the animal which I had slain, and 
retracing my steps, sought for my rifle. Vainly 
I had tried to raise the huge deer which I had 
killed, and I now craved Johnny White’s help to 
bang the game, as well as to learn of his own 
luck. 

Striding over the prairie, I soon met my friend, 
whose warning gestures denoted that other game 
was in sight. I had quickly reloaded, and soon 
was at my companion’s side. 

He huskily whispered : “ Two ! What have you 
got ? ” I answered : “ One big btick ! ” with lips 
dry with excitement. 

'‘There are three more deer in sight!” hastily 
announced the squatter boy. “ Down there ! ” 

And then, like two young Pawnees on their 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 3I 

first war path, we both skulked along toward the 
fringed barrier of the third prairie. 

Johnny was in advance, his face gathered with 
an awful scowl, as my clumsy foot snapped now 
and then a wind-blown twig. 

A few minutes brought us to the edge of the 
third opening, whence the sedges of the Lost 
Lagoon” were clearly visible. 

1 held my breath as young White indicated a 
fine buck and doe, standing clear out against the 
evening blue and only sixty yards away. 

You take the doe^ I the buck^"' he lightly breathed. 
And then, at his whispered “ Now ! ” we both fired, 
the rifles cracking in unison. 

“ Hurrah! ” yelled the frontier lad. “ Five deer 
in half an hour ! ” 

We dashed forward in triumph, and it was long 
after dark when we had, with aching arms, hung 
up the last of the disembowelled deer on stout- 
forked scrub oaks to cool off. 

Johnny’s hunter eye had already noted a hollow 
tree, a huge redwood, its soft heart burned out by 
a passing forest fire. 

Our hunting knives soon gave us a bed of 
fragrant boughs, the little coffee can was hissing 
on the fire, and sizzled bacon and Mammy White’s 
biscuit, with the coffee, made up a hearty supper. 

The glittering sword of Orion sloped far to the 
west before we laid our brows happily upon the 
drifted leaves, to dream. 

It had been agreed that Johnny, fleet of foot as 


32 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


a Comanche, should return to the rancho, starting 
before dawn. 

Riding one pony and leading another, he could 
easily be back before the next night, and then, 
with the aid of the two horses, we could easily ' 
pack down our five deer. 

After a long colloquy it was deemed best that 
Johnny should descend by the well-known road 
by which we had mounted the ridge, bringing the 
two horses by the long-abandoned cattle trail, of 
which he shared the secret with the other Whites. 

“ But,” said my friend, as he grasped his rifle 
and buckled his belt in the early dawn, we will 
go down on the new-blazed traif, and so reach 
home with the loaded horses with less fatigue. It 
will be all down-hill for the pack horses.” It 
looked to be a good programme. 

I felt a bit “spooky ” as I stirred up our bright 
camp fire and turned in to my blanket’s welcome 
embrace when the hardy lad left me. It still 
lacked two hours of day, and the quail were 
merrily piping by the sedgy lake when I awoke, 
for the vigil of the night had done its work. 

Stretching my stiffened muscles, I soon made a 
simple breakfast ; and then, with an effort to cast 
off my loneliness, decided to visit the game pre- 
sumably hung far above the reach of any prowl- 
ing wildcat. 

I carefully oriented myself, threw some damp 
bark on the smouldering fire to raise a signal 
smoke, and set off gaily to circumnavigate the 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


33 


lake and then visit the three places where our five 
deer were hung. 

The mountain tarn I found to be a lovely lake- 
let, from whose sweet aromatic flag-roots a dozen 
gorgeously-plumaged wood-ducks rose at my dis- 
turbing presence. 

My spirits rose as the sunlight danced upon the 
glittering waters, and my heart bounded as a 
graceful troop of seven deer swept along in full 
view, but too far for a sure shot. 

My finger was on the trigger of the rifle, and 
yet I strangely feared to waken the echoes of the 
lonely wilderness. 

Time enough when Johnny returns,'' I mused, 
knowing that in three hours he could make the 
descent, whereas the toilsome ascent had cost us 
eight. Then, reckoning on his arrival, mounted, 
in five hours more, I figured only on a delay of 
two hours at the home ranch. 

My spirits fell strangely as I approached the 
gloomy shades of the dell where the giant buck 
had fallen under my ready rifle. 

For a single moment I stood, lost in amazement, 
gazing at the tree from which we had lopped the 
lighter branches, to hang upon the strong forks the 
seven-pronged buck. I rubbed my eyes. There 
was no deer there ! 

And then, casting my glances down, I saw in 
softened earth the footprints of an enormous bear ! 

I know not how I guided my flight from the 
gloomy hollow until I found myself back at the 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


34 

hollow tree where I had left our knapsacks and 
the reserved ammunition. 

But, once there, I threw light material on the 
camp fire, with a nervous energy. Then I realized, 
to the full, my own loneliness. The very sound 
of my pulse seemed audible to me ! 

I drained a canteen, hanging near, and the cool 
spring water soon brought back my self-control. 
Casting my eyes about, I selected a stout 
madrono tree of some twelve inches diameter. 

Dragging two or three broken dry limbs of the 
huge redwood near, I made a tripod, which I 
could easily mount, so as to gain access to the 
forked basket of the gleaming red madrono, 
about twelve feet from the ground. Throwing 
the knapsack, still half-filled with biscuit, over my 
shoulder, I slung the canteen around me, buckled 
on my revolver, and, rifle in hand, climbed nimbly 
up the frail tripod of limbs. Once settled in the 
forks of the madrono, I pushed the branches 
down with muzzle of my gun. The heavy griz- 
zlies could not reach me in that perch ! 

Then began the weary watch of the long hours 
until my companion should return. It was fortu- 
nate that my hunting pouch was well furnished 
with loose buckskin thongs. 

I lightly looped my rifle to a limb, and, so, rcly- 
ing upon the first protection of my five-shooter, 
settled easily in the natural basket of the forked 
madrono. I was comparatively safe. 

I knew well that no bear could climb the pol- 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


35 


ished trunk of the madrono, for I had swung my- 
self up six feet above the top of my tripod. Great 
Heavens ! How long that dreary day was ! What 
a sight met my anxious gaze as I woke from a 
little nap ! 

I was almost frantic when, just before sunset, I 
heard the cheery whoop of Johnny White, as he 
trotted out into the open, riding his own pinto ” 
pony and leading another, across whose pack- 
saddle were slung two deer, 

I almost screamed Hurry up as my 
astounded friend halted before my aerial for- 
tress. 

I was still clinging there, stiffened with my 
cramped position, when I told him that I had 
seen two giant bears dragging the carcass of one 
of our deer over the hill, where the last two had 
been killed the night before. 

Johnny’s brown face blanched as he yelled, 
^‘Get down quick, then! We will not go back 
after the others. If the place is full of b’ar, we 
must leave. They will soon scent our horses.” 

I forgot my fear of the grim monsters in the 
joy of Johnny’s return. He had already gathered 
up his own impedimenta. I thought you had 
dragged the two last ones in,” he hastily cried ; 
“ I stopped for the first two I shot.” 

The frontier boy’s teeth chattered when I told 
him of my visit to the gully. Let us git out of 
here ! ” he cried, with a quick decision. “ There 
is still light enough to follow the blazed trail on. 


3 ^ 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


We will go two or three miles down the ridge, 
camp, and light four big fires, and have the ani- 
mals both tied inside. Let the derned b’ar have 
the three deer. We may kill some more down on 
the ridge. And, I’ll soon bring all the boys back 
here for a bear hunt! We’ll make a log trap, 
catch them, and so, get all our winter supplies out 
of the hides 1 ” 

I was soon mounted on Johnny’s pinto, leading 
the laden pony, as the excited lad sought in the 
dying light for the blaze-marks of Brother Luth- 
er’s hunter’s hatchet. 

I breathed freer as we finally left the hollow 
tree a half mile behind us, and Johnny’s chatter 
became bolder. “The White boys will give them 
b’ar a good wrastle,” he said, gaily. “ Loot’ll have 
to let all my brothers in now. Thar’s surely game 
enough for all.” 

But despite all of this, the dark night soon fell 
upon us. The hazel and plum bushes thickened, 
and even brave Johnny at last gave up the hope- 
less task of feeling the trunks of the smoother trees 
for the three gashes, which were Luther White 
X (his mark). 

And so, finally, wearied and footsore, we gave 
up any further progress for the night. 

We had even lost the direction of our last tree 
“ blaze mark,” and had followed blindly along one 
of three spurs which seemed to divide the mighty 
ridge. 

With due provision we had, however, brought 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


37 


dry tinder, stripped from the fallen bark of the 
great half-burned redwood, and then, within one 
magic circle of four great fires, we crouched to- 
gether, talking of the trials of the coming morn. 
We fell asleep, at last, having replenished the fires, 
and only regretting that we could not free the 
pack pony, now lying down, from the heavy bur- 
den of the two deer, for the ropes had all twisted, 
and the tired animal had laid down, pack and all. 

The riding animal, duly unsaddled, was loosely 
tied to a tree. 

How long I slept I know not ; but a horrid 
awakening came to us in the middle of the night. 
I sprang to my feet and grasped my rifle, amid a 
blinding shower of scattered sparks, as with a 
snort, our terrified riding-horse dashed over our 
prostrate bodies, careering madly away in the 
darkness. I fled along, wildly following Johnny’s 
yell, “ Run ! run ! for your life ” as I heard a 
mighty roar, and then, the awful scream of a dying 
horse, in the last agony. 

We were a quarter of a mile away when Johnn}’’, 
in answer to my whooping, at last drew back to 
my side. “ My God, Henry ! ” he cried, “ a U ar 
has followed on and killed our poor pony, weighted 
down with the deer! We've lost the riding horse, too!" 

With a sickening feeling of helplessness, I then 
realized that we were far off the trail besides, and 
wandering in a terra incognita. 

After much painful endeavor, we crouched along 
the slanting trunk of a live oak a few feet from 


38 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


the ground, and then, making the best of it, 
chattered along to keep awake until the gray 
dawn stole through the gloomy forest. 

It was a sad enough reveille for us. We crawled 
timidly down from our perches, and then summed 
up the whole situation. Two rifles, my revolver, 
a shoulder-sack with a few biscuit, and our hunt- 
ing pouches were all that we had saved. Our 
council of war was a brief one. 

Shall we go back ? ” I whispered, with white 
lips. 

‘‘ 'T' would he madness and sartain death ! ” mum- 
bled Johnny. ‘‘Them b’ar will scent the warm 
blood of the dead horse. They may find the 
other in the chaparral. No, sir-ee ! ” he slowly 
said. “ Dad White has got lots of horses, and — 
only one Johnny ! Let's dig out / ” 

Suiting the action to the word, he plunged down 
the ridge, and I had silently followed on for a mile, 
when we stopped and faced each other, in a blank 
dismay. We had drank of the one rocky pool 
that we passed and eaten a third of the few bis- 
cuits saved from the wreck of our outfit. “ There 
are no blazes here I " I cried ; we are lost I " as 
from a little opening on the ridge we could see 
two huge, unfamiliar ridges towering up toward 
the west and a wildly precipitous broken land to 
the east, covered with the heaviest timber that I 
ever saw in my life. 

My knees shook under me, as Johnny sadly 
faltered, “ We ve got to cross them two canyons 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


39 


to get back to the Soquel. We must have 
passed on and got on some ridge too far to the east.” 

Horror lay behind us. And, what difficulties were 
confronting us in the vast chasms below us to the 
west ! 

We tried to hide the springing tears from each 
other as we sadly began the descent of the first 
huge gorge. And, what unknown perils awaited 
us there ! 

Sliding scores of yards on the slippery pine 
needles, plunging through thorny thickets, crawl- 
ing along beetling cliffs, we at last felt exhausted 
as we reached the bed of a swift stream flowing 
eastwardly toward the Salinas. 

My God ! ” murmured Johnny, now beginning 
to lose heart, “ we are on the head-waters of the 
Apt os ! ” 

From sheer hunger, we stopped and shot three 
great gray squirrels, and then cooked their still 
quivering flesh at a little fire. The sun of noon 
was beaming down into the dim canyon, and only 
a fear of the coming night drove us to try to 
climb the first terrific ridge, a grim barrier, to the 
west. 

It was in the sullen darkness of night that we, 
at last, crowned the first one, and then threw our- 
selves down in desperation beside a fire which we 
kindled with much difficulty. 

Our blankets had been all abandoned when the 
bivouac was attacked, and so we alternated the 
night watch — alternately roasting one side and 


40 


LOST IN GRI2ZLY CANYON 


freezing the other. We dared not both sleep. 
By morning I found that Johnny’s dogged nature 
had given way, at last, in dumb despair. Superior 
in education, he now looked to me to lead the 
way in our forlorn hope to reach the Soquel 
again. 

Realizing the desperate situation, I fairly 
divided the last biscuit with him, and also the 
twenty, now, precious matches. It was my happy 
idea to leave a heavy fire burning behind us now 
at each stop. “You see,” said I, “they expected 
us surely home last night. They will send out a 
search party ; but I fear we will have to sleep out 
again, and we must kill some game, and so take 
our food along. Our biscuits will be out to-night ! ” 

And then, finding that my companion dumbly 
obeyed me, we strode along the second ridge for 
hours, seeking for a safe place to enter the yawn- 
ing canyon below us. A couple of lighted brands 
were borne along, and thus we kindled several 
beacon fires before we plunged, heartsick, into 
the depths of the second defile, at its most favor- 
able place. 

We had now lost all knowledge of our where- 
abouts, and no sign of man’s presence greeted us ! 

With a grim desperation, Johnny brought down 
a half-grown fawn, which stared at us as we 
struggled to the top of the lofty ridge at the close 
of the second day. 

After a long survey of the still unfamiliar land 
to the west, I threw myself down in despair by 


LOST IN GRIZ2LY CANYON 


41 


the fire, which Johnny had kindled. My shoes 
were in tatters, my strength was all gone, my 
courage was broken, and, with a sinking heart, I 
said : “ Johnny , I have done my very best ! I can 
go on no farther ! ” 

We hung up the hind-quarters of our fawn, and 
slept that night, within a defiant circle of fire. 

It was a gloomy day of rest that we passed in 
“ Lost Camp,” as the stolid Johnny had termed it. 

Our food was now reduced to broiled venison, 
sprinkled with wood ashes, and we fell on each 
other’s necks, in boyish tears, as in the early dawn 
of the third day overdue at home^ we heard the 
sharp crack of a rifle a mile away. 

Quickly we answered with two double charged 
shots, fired a half minute apart, and, then, in half 
an hour, the bronzed faces of “ Loot,” Morris, and 
Bill White appeared through the forest arches. 

“ God d mighty ! ” cried Luther, you boys have 
given us an awful scare ! ” 

“ How did you find us f ” I babbled, as they plied 
us with questions. 

“ By your last two fires f said Loot, who was 
alone the master of the local topography. 
“You’ve gone fifteen mile south and twelve mile 
to the east. Ye’re way off the head-waters of the 
Aptos. We feared you had been killed by the 
derned grizzlies ! ” 

In half an hour, we had learned of the terrific 
bear fight, in which the brothers had slain two 
giant grizzlies. “ Thar s a hundred dollar in them 


42 


LOST IN GRIZZLY CANYON 


b'ars r grinned Morris, and the two ponies were 
only worth forty dollars for the lot.” 

“An’, besides, we’ll git five hundred dollars of 
peltry an’ venison out of here next month,” said 
Loot. “The hull gang is cornin’ up to camp here. 
My secret' s busted up ! But, only us Whites can 
run this here game preserve.” 

As we emerged at last from the fringed forest, I 
gazed back at the piled-up mass of entangled ridges, 
and thanked God for a deliverance from the mon- 
sters who ruled the sedgy shores of Bear Lake. 

Once at home, my nerve, born of desperation, 
gave way, and I lay ill with a fever for a week, 
until the haunting visions of our grim bivouac 
had passed. 

Since then, I have wandered over the whole 
world. I have gone on many a hidden quest, but 
I never have faced three days of more exciting 
hardship and sudden terror than the time spent, 
hungry and broken, in toiling through the wilder- 
ness upheaved around Grizzly Canyon. 

To-day vineyards and country homes smile there. 
The forests are laid low, but, the plumed quail still 
pipe in the bushy shades, and the diamond streams 
dash through the picturesque gorges seeking the 
white foam-line of the western sea. I am old and 
gray, but these youthful memories sway me still 
as the breeze shakes the gusty pines of the Sierras. 


THE POOL OF DEATH 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 





THE POOL OF DEATH. 


In thirty years of varied experience, I do not 
remember any portion of the “ deserts wild and 
antres vast,” which I have roved over, as repug"- 
nant to me as the regions of Colon, Mosquito, 
and Olancho, in Spanish Honduras. Six months 
of the year eighteen hundred and ninety, wasted 
in climbing the terrific spurs of the Carpamento 
and Silaco Mountains in search of gold, have 
cured me, for life, of the aura sacri fames. 

The arid valleys between the mountain ranges 
were glowing furnaces, and the gloomy tropical 
forest between the Rio Negro and the lonely 
Aguan was haunted with varying horrors. The 
Atlantic coast of Spanish Honduras, from Puerta 
Barrios to Cape Gracias d Dios presents a line of 
steaming lagoons with a fringe of banana, cocoa- 
nut, and pineapple plantations. Bold mountains 
are barriers to the interior, and the lonely, silent 
rivers are only traversed by the dug-out of the 
barbarous natives. No wheeled vehicle can be 
used for inland journeys ; the horse is almost use- 
less, and, diminutive but wonderfully reliable 
mules are the only means of transport for man and 
merchandise. 


46 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


Scattered along the coast are squalid towns — 
old Truxillo and Omoa alone recall the days of 
the Conquistadores, with their ruined Spanish 
fortifications. There is no gun mounted to-day 
on the superb old castle of Omoa, and the gi- 
gantic iguana lizard comfortably nests in the few 
old bronze cannon still pointing seaward at T ruxillo. 
It was upon the public square of this decayed 
ante-colonial city that I rallied my party for a 
voyage into the gloomy gorges of the Mangalile 
Mountains. The fact that my illustrious compa- 
triot William Walker had been shot there, with 
hospitable promptness, was a prophecy of the 
mingled reserve, aversion, and treachery with 
which I found the whole people tainted. The 
official half-caste Honduraneans, the Mestizos, the 
degraded interior Indians, and the white refugees 
of a dozen countries made up an unlovely human 
show, in which there was no promise of any sur- 
vival of the fittest. The coal-black Caribs alone 
seemed in the main to be sober, civil, and reliable. 
The most daring boatmen of the whole world, the 
most adroit fishermen, and the masters of the cut- 
ting and loading of all tropical fruits, this singular 
people never go inland, and their farthest range 
is limited by the length of a day’s canoe journey 
up and down the innumerable watery openings 
into the tropical jungle of the great gloomy At- 
lantic forests. The Carib’s foot is always in touch 
with the seashore. From his villages he goes out 
boldly to reap the harvest of the fisheries, disdain- 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


47 


ing cyclone and storm, fearless amid the raging 
waves. Seated in a little canoe, dug out of a sin- 
gle log, paddle in hand, the hardy Carib pilot will 
board a thousand-ton steamer, laughingly, when 
the bravest white man dares not lower a boat. 

Strange people, guiltless of the traveler’s blood, 
bearing no weapons, they have mystic secrets of 
their own, which none may gain for money. Snake- 
charming, voudoo arts, charms and love-potions, 
strange customs speaking of old Africa and the 
Niger, are theirs, and they live at peace with all 
along the eight hundred-mile coast. 

Their houses are neat, their villages clean and 
even prosperous looking, their stately coal-black 
women are industrious and modest and always 
clad in gleaming, spotless white. The Christian 
cross is hung upon the women’s necks, and, rich 
in fish and poultry, the smaller animals, with store 
of cassava bread, the housekeeping is far from 
despicable. Honduras, stretching to the Pacific 
Ocean, has but one port and a small strip of sea- 
board on the west, and, only from Tegucigalpa, its 
mountain capital, to the Pacific, a certain pros- 
perity reigns. The great triangle facing the At- 
lantic is, in the main, a gloomy and unfrequented 
jungle. The Caribs penetrate but a few miles into 
the interior on their banana-cutting forays, or in 
search of a huge cedar tree, from a section of 
which a splendid canoe, sometimes forty feet long, 
is made from one log by burning out and trim- 
ming. 


48 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


Returning with this easily gotten vessel, at the 
seashore the hardy Carib builds on upper works, 
masts, and rigs it, and often produces a vessel fit 
to voyages as far as the Bahamas. 

Leaving these quaint and worthy simple folk, 
with two white companions, and several muleteers 
and natives, I departed for the head waters of the 
Aguan. The lazy, dreamy old city of Truxillo, 
lying under the shadows of Congrehoy, was re- 
pulsive with its squalid adobes, its dirty, frowsy 
soldiers, its lurking vagabonds, its limp, insolent 
half-caste women. When not stealing out in the 
black manta to linger like dejected crows around 
an old tumble-down church on the plaza, these 
listless children of sloth were idly swinging in the 
hammock, or seated on a horse or ox skull, comb- 
ing their stringy, raven hair. 

In a climate of enervating tropical heat, varied 
with terrific storms, with its social life punctuated 
by occasional sweeping visitations of Yellow Jack 
and recurrent tragedies, the men lazy, vicious, and 
listless, the women without education, art, or occu- 
pation, the old community slowly rots along to the 
last limit of social decay. Everything seems to 
have relaxed ; neither government, creed, faith, nor 
even personal ambition lifts up the dull level of 
Honduranean squalor. 

Down from the plateau, where every ragged 
tatterdemalion was a Don Luis or Don Sebastian, 
where every bare-footed wearer of a single gar- 
ment was Senora Mercedes, or Donna Isabel, our 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


49 


litl ie cavalcade dragged away in the glaring sun, 
pa.;t the prosperous Carib town, to enter, after a 
journey on the beach of a half dozen miles, the 
gloomy gorge, leading into the defiles of the great 
mountain range, separating us from the vast inland 
wilderness of the Aguan and Rio Negro Valleys 
beyond. There were two or three steamers vis- 
ible as I lost the blue sea from my sight. Steamers 
from New Orleans and Baltimore and Mobile, 
lying there till the hardy Caribs would assemble 
at different landings along the coast enough cocoa- 
nuts, half-ripe pineapples, and yet green bananas 
to keep the doctors of a dozen Northern cities in 
ecstasies for weeks, in the “ near future.” The sil- 
ver half-dollars paid to the Caribs and the purchase 
price of fruit furnish nearly all the money current 
along the whole Mosquito coast. Hides, sarsapa- 
rilla root and vine, deer and goat skins, being the 
only output of Spanish Honduras, save mahogany 
and logwood in decreasing quantities. I gazed 
back at Hog Island, the first point where Columbus 
sighted the main land of America, and muttered a 
good-by as we left the sweltering beach. The 
usual first day’s mishaps had broken all our tem- 
pers. Packs overturning, fractious mules, stupid 
mozos, one cowardly servant deserting in fear of 
the unknown terrors of a three-weeks’ inland 
march, and all the shaking down of a pulling 
out,” made the three Americans grumpy. We 
plunged into a dim defile and began to ascend the 
scarped mountains leading to the interior Aguan, 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


SO 

Valley, and the path led along the trail of Cortez’ 
slaves. 

The little mules hopped from step to step, cut 
in the rocks, and after dizzying ourselves with 
glances down into the sheer canyons, along which 
we picked our way, we closed our eyes, held on 
to the saddles, and let the mules guard their own 
lives, as well as those of their riders. 

Chill airs drew under the huge forest trees, and 
as we were dripping from the solar broiling 
of the long ride along the beach, manifold insects 
of Honduranean strangeness settled upon the 
exposed parts of our bodies, buzzing, biting, nip 
ping, burrowing, and stinging. We knew that 

all men were liars ” as to the hundred varying 
accounts of the three-hundred-mile forest route 
we were to traverse, but, they all agreed in truth as 
to the “insectivora” of the interior. Sandflies, 
chigoes, garrapatos, mosquitoes, red ants, white 
ants, and everything with legs, wings, and arms, 
cheered us on our way. 

The evening shades descended as we reached 
the summit at Bella Vista, and had one last peep 
of a distant sapphire streak. The three voyagers 
on the golden quest had been initiated into the 
delights of dragging the mules up the steeper 
places, and crawling along, encumbered with 
spurs, revolvers, bowie knives, clattering can- 
teens, Winchester rifles, and all the impedimenta 
of the fool’s voyage into Wonderland. 

I can recall now, with evident shame, my in- 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


51 


ternal soliloquy as I began to see the delights in 
store ahead. In three weeks, to cross nine ranges 
of mountains, swim and ford a dozen rivers, and 
have the horrors of a ten days’ jungle trip, the 
wiles of the wild Olancheros, and the possibilities 
of throat-cutting by the Rio Negro and Patuca 
Indians. All this loomed up suddenly, and only 
the coward pride of an Americano kept my face 
turned to the West. I should have turned back, 
for, I shed my good boots, my temper, nearly all 
my skin, my good money, and scattered my per- 
sonal belongings in a wasteful, castaway manner 
for three months, gladly giving or throwing away 
the last, when I leaped aboard a little sloop on my 
return, to sail out to the Carribean Islands, and 
catch a fruit schooner destined to drop me at the 
South Ferry, in the city of New York, the home 
of every giddy pleasure. 

My envy of the bare-legged mozos running 
along, clad only in a degag^ shirt and rawhide 
sandals, cigarette in mouth, and machete in hand, 
was suddenly chilled as we were stopped in our 
single file descent, by a particularly vicious look- 
ing ‘‘ fer de lance ” snake about six feet long. I 
was aware that these insidious ophidians amiably 
took a yellow color in ripe banana bunches, a 
brown shade on logs and leafy mold, a green one 
among brandies and foliage, and were deadly in 
their freely-offered poison. Only the Caribs seem 
to have guarded the secret of an antidote to these 
bites, and we had no Carib Indian with us. 


52 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


In the huddle, the frightened muleteers and 
mozos allowed the three Americanos to practice 
on the defiant ‘‘fer de lance” with three revol- 
vers, a rifle, and a shotgun, and the vicious reptile 
was twisting and squirming long after the brave 
Honduraneans had clubbed the remains of him 
soundly. A veteran plainsman — a Sioux fighter — 
had shot Mr. Fer de Lance into three or four 
lengths. The city gentleman divided him again, 
and I then, blew him into pieces about the con- 
venient size of Frankfurters. 

When we had urged our little cavalcade of 
seven mules by his battleground, the woods were 
vocal with all kinds of discordant shrieks. Ani- 
mals, small and large, seemed to slip around in a 
profusion suggesting the Wolfs Glen in Der 
Freischutz.” Screaming parrots, yelling macaws, 
the distant sounds of jackal, jaguar, peccary, and 
wild turkey, mingled with the plaintive call of the 
“trujillo” bird, whose strange cry recalled the 
droning town we had left. 

Hares, grouse, partridges, and fat-breasted 
orioles abounded, and the chatter of a dozen 
tribes of monkeys down by the streams wafted us 
on our way. The mules stepped on little lazy 
armadilloes rattling along in horny coats of mail, 
and an assortment of lizards, from four inches to 
four feet long, took note of our movements. The 
camp that night was a funereal one. Coffee, some 
cold provender, and the slinging of the little can- 
vas hammocks tied on behind our saddles, were 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


53 


our only restorers, and then, each man fought his 
own crop of attached insects, and tried to sleep in 
the simoom breath of a tropical night. 

Experience led me to be comfortable in the 
little canvas trough later, and to regard boots 
and a belt with revolver and bowie knife, as mere 
trifles in a night toilet. We all became used to 
every kind of yell, shriek, and howl, the browning 
cuticle at last ceased to pain us when the Hon- 
duranean insect burrowed into the poison skin, 
and a social and physical numbness prepared me 
for the later delights of traveling one hundred 
and twenty miles upon two raw eggs and three 
half-roasted plantains as rations. 

But lor the pipe and a few handfuls of tobacco, 
the relator would have surely left his cadaver to 
the peccaries, on a return five weeks later, alone, 
save for two hostile would-be cutthroats, over the 
yet unknown horrors of the Mangalile trail. 

We had passed one little town, and it was a 
week later that we found ourselves camping in the 
heart of the vast malarial, gloomy wilderness of 
the upper bend of the great Aguan river. We 
were pretty well aware that nothing could in 
crease the miseries of the opening week of a most 
wasteful phase of all our lives, but, in the little in- 
tervals of open ground, we could see rising afar 
now the terrific battlements of the mountain 
ranges we were doomed to drag our fever- 
weakened bodies over, on a bootless errand. It 
was no comfort to us to know that Cortez had lost 


54 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


three hundred of his bravest cavaliers in these 
same terrific gorges, but, when our flatly mutinous 
muleteers demanded rest, and the animals were 
ready to break down, we camped in the heart of 
the trackless forest which had entrapped us. 

We had gone on beyond all signs of the lazy 
Monduraneans and only a few squalid mountain 
Indians passed us, in fear and trembling. The 
sound of our guns alarmed them, for we made 
free with the abundant game. The poor wretches 
staggering along under the weight of eighty 
pounds of twisted sarsaparilla roots were travel- 
ing two hundred miles to the sea to barter it for 
liquor, a little cloth, and a few trinkets. 

In our temporary camp we remained several 
days. The hammocks were slung to trees cleared 
of ail branches. A fire brightly burning frightened 
away the dangerous animals at night, a dozen 
smudges killed some of the insects, and we had 
cleared the ground of scorpions, tarantulas, and 
other poisonous vermin. Two or three circles of 
horsehair lariats were stretched to prevent snakes 
crossing the elastic barrier, and we rested in a 
sullen inertia of ugly discontent. 

Pouring rain on the march, terrible tropical 
thunder-storms of exceptional violence, and the 
murky miasmatic heat under the enormous trees 
had hardened us to the amplitude of physical 
suffering awaiting us. 

Gigantic trees, three hundred feet high, towering 
around us were the nests of clouds of glossy-black, 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


55 


rose-beaked oriole toucans, with golden epaulettes. 
At dawn, magnificent flights of macaws and flamin- 
goes made the sky one mass of moving color. 
Great monkeys lived high up in these giant trees, 
while the gum trees and cedars, with the ma- 
hogany and ceiba trees had another monkey popu- 
lation living a hundred feet below, with game 
birds and squirrels as their mates. Huge roots 
ran out as buttresses from the ceiba trees, and, 
trailing from the branches of the lower foliage, 
the tracery of tropical vine and flowering plants 
was impenetrable. Ten feet away from the trail 
we chopped out, a man was invisible. 

The rarest orchids by thousands bloomed around 
us, as parasites on the trunks of huge trees from 
fifteen to twenty feet in diameter. 

The secret of our muleteers’ mutiny was found 
soon to be a little hidden village of half-caste mes- 
tizos hovering near a great pool in the forest 
from which a slender rivulet not six inches deep 
trinkled down to the morasses and swamps flooded 
with rank black poisonous water from the over- 
flowing windings and bends of the huge Aguan. 
The men of this squalid little camp of indigenes 
were absent hunting sarsaparilla, cutting logwood, 
shooting jaguars, or collecting gorgeous birds’ 
wings, for the lovely daughters of Eve, in Paris, 
London, and New York, and our muleteers made 
free with our tobacco, panoche cake sugar, coffee, 
and in fact, all stealable articles. This tribute was 
used to insure them a welcome among the half- 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


56 

starved forest dwellers, and fandango and festa 
went on, while we, the gringo greenhorns, were 
hunting, quarreling or picking out a few samples 
of the three or four hundred insects every one of 
us carried around. 

The great black pool was the most considerable 
body of water seen in two or three days’ march, 
and morning and evening, deer, jaguars, droves 
of peccary, and many uncouth animals boldly 
emerged from the circling forest shades to slake 
their thirst in its never-failing waters. 

At the lower end of this pool, where the rivulet 
trickled forth, a few heavy stones had been rolled 
together, with here and there, a rough wooden plat- 
form. To this place, the dozen or more women of 
the little village would repair to wash their prim- 
itive costumes. It was the one mark of social 
civilization in the village of thatched palm huts, 
where a mud bake-oven for cassava bread, a sin- 
gle iron pot, a few chickens, and a few earthen 
dishes, with a half-dozen knives, forks, and spoons, 
made up the whole personal property. Even the 
hammocks were twisted of the fibres of the forest 
vines. 

It was by a delegation of the ladies of this most 
unfashionable summer resort that we were re- 
quested to rid them of some unknown monster 
which had devoured several of the children, left 
playing and sprawling around the banks of the 
Pool of Death, while the mothers were washing. 
Even one old woman, who had lain down for a 


The pool of death 


57 


siesta, had bodily disappeared. One native hunter 
who was possessed of an old pot-metal shot gun 
had vainly watched over a yelping puppy tied to 
a stake near the pool of death. No jaguar, puma, 
or wolf, no animal of known ferocity, was potted 
by him. 

We were inclined to think that this was a story 
of our muleteers, who passed the days enjoying 
roast monkey, stewed iguana, and baked plantain, 
with these simple villagers. 

But, the howls of the women approaching our 
camp in a body, touched us, when we found that a 
little boy of three had been lost, in the daytime, 
after being left playing on the bank of the myste- 
rious pool. A long night’s vigil of three hunters, 
each with a mozo,” resulted in nothing save the 
shooting of a stray jaguar, a couple of fat deer, 
and the amusing adventure of the plainsman, who 
w'as nodding at his post. In the dead hours of 
the night, a couple of wolves came bounding down 
to the bank, chasing a dark-colored animal almost 
as large as a young ass. Plunging and wallowing 
along through the dense underbrush, the mad- 
dened animal came rushing on, and, pausing but 
a moment on the bank to shake off its vulpine pur- 
suers, plunged boldly into the dark waters of the 
silent Pool of Death. 

The startled plainsman had only time to roll 
over one of the wolves with a Winchester bullet, 
the other escaping, when he gazed out on the 
star-lit surface of the Pool of Death, to mark the 


SS 


THE POOL OP DEATH 


reappearance of the strange animal which had 
sought relief in boldly hurling itself into the black 
waters. 

‘^That’s a queer sort of a jackass,” mused the 
plainsman. “ Won’t he ever come up ? I wonder 
if he walks on the bottom of the lake? ” With his 
rifle cocked, and revolver ready, he awaited some 
sign of the return of the frightened animal. “ I 
wonder if he has committed suicide ? ” mused the 
hardy American plainsman. “Jackasses that navi- 
gate like this, would be valuable to Barnum.” 

And he suddenly drew back, rifle in hand, as 
the waters parted near him, and the ungainly 
animal tried feebly to mount the bank. 

“ By jove ! It’s a huge tapir ! ” suddenly re- 
flected the rifleman, who had knocked over dozens 
of bear, buffalo, elk, and black-tail deer, but had, 
so far, never been vouchsafed a pop at Tapirus 
Americanis, “I’ll let him get up the bank and 
save the wolves the trouble of killing him. I want 
to see what he is like with his taper four toes in 
front, and tapering off to three toes behind. I’ve 
got him sure, now. He’s very weak.” 

The plainsman was about to draw a bead, when, 
with an unwilling struggle, the tapir was sud- 
denly drawn back under the black water, the boil- 
ing foam and bubbles indicating a terrible strug- 
gle of some kind. 

A careful search by daylight disclosed nothing 
but the dead wolf to add to the night’s bag of the 
jaguar and the two fat deer. But, the irritated 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


59 


plainsman was determined to investigate the con- 
tents of the Pool of Death. ‘‘Gentlemen,” he 
said, after the three men had taken a turn around 
the Pool of Death, and killed monkeys and 
iguanas enough for the men’s larder for a couple 
of days, “ the inhabitant of that black hole stole 
my tapir, and — he went where the missing picka- 
ninnies and the venerable old lady went to. I pro- 
pose to get even ! ” 

At noon, after carefully watching the pool all 
the morning, the plainsman sounded the depths of 
the pool by throwing in stones with cork buoys 
tied to them with long strings. He found that 
the deepest place was about twenty feet, and in 
the middle, easily reachable by tossing any object 
from the bank, about half way up the long side of 
the pond. 

The whole population of “ Ciudad Perdida ” 
was gathered around the bank, and the two other 
Americans were on hand with their guns ready 
as the plainsmen lashed three full sticks of giart 
powder together, and, carefully capping them, 
cemented the fuses, cutting them about ten feet 
long. 

Attaching the projectile to a good-sized stone, 
the plainsmen, with a few cautionary words, hurled 
the explosive agent well out into the middle of the 
black pool of death. 

There was silence for twenty seconds, and then 
a huge column of mud, water, drifted leaves, 
sticks, and even a good sized log was thrown up 


6o 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


^ifty feet into the air. Huge boiling ripples of 
blackened mud waves lapped the shores, and, with 
exclamations of disappointment, the whole dwellers 
in the “ lost city,” as well as the travelers, circu- 
lated around the banks of the Pool of Death. 

“ It’s a very strange thing,” said the plainsman, 
“ who ever got my tapir has nailed him down, and 
crawled into some hole. That triple explosion 
would have killed an elephant ! ” There was a shout 
from a frightened mozo. 

Drifting slowly down to the mouth of the little 
rivulet was the body of a huge, loathsome alliga- 
tor, the shallow waters dyed with its escaping 
blood. Dragged out in triumph, the great sau- 
rian was found to be bursted open for three feet 
under its right side. A fusillade of rifle balls 
ended its career, for the formidable tail was still 
writhing in the death agonies. The grisly mon- 
ster was nearly twenty feet in length. 

“ There ! ” proudly cried the plainsman, is the 
fellow who was, slowly but surely, depopulating 
“ Ciudad Perdida ! ’ ” He proceeded to catechize 
the frightened women, and found that, two sea- 
sons before, the Aguan River had flooded the 
whole forest. “ He was left up here in shallow 
water when the waters receded,” said the trium- 
phant hunter, “ and, craftily hiding, being made 
desperate with hunger, he slyly watched for whom 
he might devour. He got my tapir, — and — I got 
him.” 

Followed by the blessings of the rejoicing 


THE POOL OF DEATH 


6l 


women, the three Americans broke camp, and 
toiled on toward the awful gorges of the Manga- 
lile River. 



The Pirate of Williams Landing 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAQE 



THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS 
LANDING. 


There was no period of the war a more dismal 
one for the loyal citizens of the Pacific coast than 
the winter of “ sixty-two.” The general reverses 
to the Union arms had dispirited the supporters 
of the Federal government, and the “ coast ” was 
practically cut off from the loyal East. Oregon, 
Washington, Nevada, and Arizona were thinly 
populated. The Indians of the great plains 
romped freely over the Northern Overland Mail 
Route, Arizona was under the heel of Texan 
raiders, and — there was no railroad in those days. 

The population of California, then the great 
treasure house of a tottering Federal Government, 
was about evenly divided between the North and 
South. With a wondrous sagacity. President 
Lincoln only drew about fifteen thousand men 
from California to reopen the northern overland 
route, garrison the coast forts, and drive back 
Sibley’s raiders from Arizona. 

And, all too late, the southern men of the Pacific 
coast saw how an easy prey had slipped from their 
hands. The same tactics which gave over the 


66 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 

Federal troops in Texas, under General Twiggs< 
to the Confederacy, would have given the Rich- 
mond government the army and navy supplies, 
the Mare Island Navy Yard, the Benicia Arsenal, 
the coast forts, and all the movable munitions of 
war. It would have been easy to hold the mints 
and gold mines, and to divert the treasure which 
bolstered up the Lincoln government, into Jeff 
Davis’s hands via Acapulco, and Chihuahua. 

The French, then in Mexico, would have gladly 
aided the Southerners, and it would have taken 
years to send out Union troops to regain California. 

Two things saved California and the coast to the 
Union. First, the leading Southerners were easy- 
going landowners, politicians, and professional 
men. They never believed the North would fight, 
and were not as eager to raise a local storm as 
they should have been, in their own interest. The 
banks, telegraphs, mails, and business houses, with 
the merchant shipping, were in the hands of loyal 
Northern men, who, at once, became business 
agents of the Washington Government. 

When the tide of victory in ^‘sixty-two ” seemed 
to have set toward the Southern banners, the 
secessionists of the Pacific coast woke up, and 
began secret operations. Numbers of their bold- 
est and bravest hastened East to fight with Sidney 
Johnston and Stonewall Jackson. 

But, the weakness ol the American Union at 
sea, was at once apparent in the easy depredations 
of the Sumter^ the Alabama^ the Georgia^ the Talla- 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


67 


kasseey the Florida^ the Chicamaugay and the subse- 
quent adventures of the ram Stonewall^ and the 
Shenandoah^ which destroyed our Pacific whaling 
fleet. 

Had the Southern government sent early in the 
war, a couple of good cruisers to the broad Pacific, 
they would have terrorized California, whose 
heavy freights came around Cape Horn, ravaged 
the fleet of Pacific Mail gold-carrying mail 
steamers, and swept all American commerce from 
the western ocean. There was nothing to prevent 
this, as the safe homeward voyage of the “ Shen- 
andoah ” from the Arctic, after the war, proved, 
when she dodged a victorious navy of a thousand 
vessels. 

But, in the winter of sixty-two,” the two parties 
in California began to crystallize into fierce little 
knots. There were those vague, indefinable 
rumors that “ something was going to happen,” 
which indicated a tardy activity on the part of 
the boldest men who ever drew sword in a civil 
war. Why they did not act sooner will always 
remain a puzzle to the historian. The real rea- 
son probably was, that, with “ Stonewall Jackson ” 
in the valley, and Lee, already laurel-crowned, 
there was over-confidence at Richmond as to con- 
quering an early peace. 

Neither Grant, Sherman, Thomas, McPherson, 
or Sheridan had fully blossomed out into acknowl- 
edged heroes as yet, while the Southern laurels 
were in full bloom on many a brow. 


68 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 

The Union men of California organized Union 
Leagues, which secretly co-operated with the 
civil and military authorities, and no one was 
admitted unless under the scrutiny of men who 
marked every action of the candidate. These 
leagues were well supplied with money by the 
business men. They had free use of the mails and 
telegraph, and were in secret league with the 
police and provost-marshals. They drilled and 
had private neighborhood rallying plans ; they 
had arms and munitions and could get more 
freely. 

On the other hand, the “ Jeff Davis men ” — the 
Knights of the Golden Circle, and the so-called 
“ Copperheads ” — dared not openly assemble. 
They were forced to act like men under the ban, 
for, an incautious “Hurrah for Jeff Davis,” brought 
the excited revolutionists very soon to Alcatraz 
Island, engaged in wheeling rocks under the eyes 
of a Yankee sentinel. 

There was a brooding quiet, but much con- 
cealed ugliness and sporadic “ shooting scrapes,” 
usually settled the friction at the angry points of 
touch. Every one went armed, the Union League 
rooms were all guarded, and the slightest sus- 
picious act on any Southern man’s part caused 
him to be pounced on. 

It was too late to make the grand coup, but * 
not too late, to do something effective. A few 
daring Southerners supplied money and others 
brains, and young hot-heads were ready to make 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 69 

the ** break.” But, the ‘‘ break ” had to be made 
with due regard to the inexhaustible amount of 
‘‘rock work” ready at Alcatraz, and the growing 
grip of the Federal authorities. 

Secret service men were scattered all over the 
coast. The revenue cutters watched Puget 
Sound, the Columbia River, and the northern 
California ports were filled with loyal, hardy lum- 
bermen, and a chain of Union Leagues swept all 
along to San Diego. 

There were troops at Los Angeles and San 
Diego. San Francisco was only guarded by cut- 
ters and one or two refuse naval vessels, together 
with a monitor, then in the bottom of the harbor! 

But, the forts and arsenals were strongly held. 
Only a lonely strip of coast from Pescadero, 
down to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara 
offered a hiding place to fit out a staunch little 
privateer to capture one of the weak Pacific Mail 
steamers. Taking one of these, then laying in 
wait for another, three millions in gold, and two 
great ships would reward a good boarding dash. 
Mexico was at hand, but the ports there and at 
Panama, were watched by our Consuls and the 
secret service spies. The sole precaution taken 
very late in the war was to put a V olunteer officer, 
forty men, and one light gun on each of the great 
treasure argosies. And, this “stable door ” expe- 
dient was brought about by two daring attempts 
to begin a little privateering on the Pacific. 

Public rumor had crystallized upon some such 


70 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


attempt, and also, an organized system of robbing 
the great treasure carryalls of Wells, Fargo & Co., 
who brought, in coaches and stages, the golden 
bars in from the whole Pacific coast. There were 
only two little strips of railroad on the Pacific 
coast then, neither over thirty miles long. 

A foolhardy young fellow, becoming intoxicated, 
was caught in the interior, with a uniform of the 
C. S. A., a commission as a lieutenant of the South- 
ern army, and the stage and land treasure-raids 
were rendered impossible. For, the whole plan 
leaked out by the imprudence of this ardent young 
pioneer of the sword. 

He was hustled away somewhere, and indulged 
in a long period of judicious retirement. 

But, the naval operations were really creeping 
along. There were several lonely little landings 
between San Francisco and Monterey which really 
offered a snug hiding-place for a privateer. Santa 
Cruz and Monterey were open roadsteads, and 
there were custom-houses and strong Union 
Leagues at both places. Every vessel on the Pacific 
coast was watched in its ownership, and transfers 
were jealously guarded. 

Above Santa Cruz, between it and Pescadero, 
were two or three lonely landings, where only 
lime in barrels and lumber, were shipped from the 
forest hills of the towering coast range. And as 
many as a dozen fleet schooners, some of them 
of two or three hundred tons, plied to these 
out-of-the-way spots, doing a thriving business in 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


71 


carrying material for the San Francisco market. 
There were no custom-houses or officers at these 
insignificant landings, and at one of them, several 
very fine schooners were owned by the brother of 
a man who became one of the most renowned of 
the Southern privateer captains. 

In that immediate region, a scattered population 
of about a thousand, was quite “ solidly secesh ” — 
to use the phrase of those days. And into this 
region, few Union men ventured alone. Consta- 
ble, sheriff, tax collector, and assessor of Abe Lin- 
coln’s new taxes gave it a very wide berth. 

The audacious capture of the Pacific Mail 
Steamers’ liner Ariel by the Alabama^ on Novem- 
ber 18, 1862, in the Atlantic, showed how easily 
a great weak mail steamer, loaded with non-com- 
batants, would succumb. There were busy brains 
pondering over this problem on the Santa Cruz 
coast, and men who roundly cursed the captain of 
the Alabama for taking an empty steamer bound 
from New York down to Aspinwall, instead of the 
gold-laden mate, which came up, two days later, 
with two millions of gold aboard, on the same 
route. 

But, from the Santa Cruz coast of California, 
the outgoing treasure-laden Pacific Mail steamers, 
bound from San Francisco to Panama, could be 
seen any fair day as they slanted down the coast, 
shaving Monterey point close. And, an elaborated 
plan was ready — the only thing was to get the 
vessels and the guns. The men, a hundred hardy 


*J2 tHE PIRATE OE WILLIAMS LANDING 

riflemen, whose boarding bravery would easily do 
the trick, could be had in the disloyal legion re- 
ferred to. 

I was in those days a very ardent sportsman, a 
hardy rider, and, from Santa Cruz as a central 
point, had hunted and fished over the whole coast 
range of the country. The easy freemasonry of 
the chase and a policy of backsheesh as to sporting 
gear and ammunition, made me hail fellow well 
met with the good-humored Southern lads of even 
this disgruntled region. I was an ardent young 
“ Union Leaguer,” and being vicariously drilled as 
a possible recruit in a Santa Cruz military com- 
pany. At seventeen, I was able to handle a four- 
teen-pound Harper’s Ferry musket, with more or 
less dexterity. 

The only suspicious movement of the Southern- 
ers near us had been the sudden disappearance 
in the night during the winter of sixty -two, of a 
very excellent thirty-two pounder which was a 
trophy of the capture of Monterey by Commodore 
Sloat. This gun was the pride of the citizens of 
Santa Cruz, and was our local standby. In some 
mysterious manner it disappeared, and as far as 
this deponent knoweth has never turned up 
since. The circumstance was a fortunate one, for 
it put every Union man in the county upon his 
mettle, and much neighborhood spying was the 
result. 

I enjoyed the close acquaintance of the Collector 
of the Port, a fine young man, a prominent Union 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 73 

Leaguer, and one who made a brave and gallant 
officer in the field later. I was privately requested, 
as a sort of leader among the lads of the whole 
region for fifty miles around, to watch every one 
of my young Southern cronies for any possible 
bragging as to where that gun went. 

There was a shock-haired friend of mine, a 
youth of eighteen, who lived near Williams Land- 
ing, one of these lonely little ports about sixteen 
miles north of Santa Cruz. He was of Southern 
parentage and lived ‘‘up Williams Creek.” We 
had been greatly drawn to each other in sundry 
mussel gathering raids, in trips shooting sea lions 
and hair seals along the lonely coast. He had 
taught me how to find store of great sea fish trapped 
at low tide, in the jagged holes of the rocky bench. 
We had “plastered” the ducks and curlew and 
wild geese together. His people were land rich 
and money poor, and on his visits to Santa Cruz, 
he “ struck me ” when short of pocket money. I 
regarded this good-natured oaf as the greatest 
“ all-round ” man whom I had ever met. His 
wood lore was equal to his open country work 
and his beach-combing. An athlete and a child of 
nature, “ nothing fazed him,” and so, when in the 
early spring of sixty-three he gave me a rough in- 
vitation to visit his ranch, I saddled up my horse. 

I left my gun, for he confided to me, in return 
for a lot of fishing gear, that he had struck the 
greatest hole for trout that was known in the 
whole coast range, and he had not given this 


74 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


momentous secret away. I was bent only on sport 
as we rode along, and it was toward evening, when 
we rode up to Williams Landing, a little port 
which I had never seen. 

Four miles above it on a considerable creek, was 
this hospitable Arkansas youth’s family head- 
quarters. I stood and gazed in surprise at the 
high rocky bluff nearly a hundred feet high, with 
a great longitudinal fissure enabling the largest 
schooner to lay within the rectangular chasm in 
smooth, oily water. There was a conformation of 
the coast which made this almost land-encircled 
nook safe for schooners to lie at anchor, and I 
noticed a splendid schooner lying buoyed out in 
the open, there, while another, her tall topmasts 
not reaching to the rocky bluffs, was moored in the 
chasm with side lines. Two powerful steam 
engines, with the very heaviest tackle, were load- 
ing the vessel below with huge clumps of barreled 
lime and great bunches of sawed lumber. The 
gray, oily waves heaved the kelp outside, the sea 
bird flew along at the level of our feet, and the 
blue ocean stretched out, a sapphire zone, to where 
we could see the great steamers pointing down 
the coast for Panama. I watched the lime and 
lumber coming down the ravines on a rough 
wooden track train-way by gravity, and, admiring 
the whole affair, politely declined to go down to 
the schooner below in a cage. Far down, on the 
rocky ledges of the chasm, where shelves had been 
blasted out, I could see great masses of freight and 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 75 

boxed machinery for the dozen or more sawmills, 
then engaged in ruining the magnificent, never-to- 
be-replaced redwood forests. There were only a 
few rough-looking workmen around. No one lived 
there, except, in a couple of cabins, the operating 
force who worked this enormous loading and un- 
loading machinery. It was the only place where 
a safe landing could be had and heavy material 
handled in fifty miles. 

For loneliness, it left nothing to be desired. We 
rode away up the incense-breathing redwood 
canyons, and, before the stars were out, our horses 
were comfortably stabled, and I had been hospi- 
tably received by the kindly old mother of my 
friend. A great rambling old frontier farmhouse, 
with lean-to’s and extensions, was hidden in a 
beautiful creek bottom, encircled with huge barns, 
and evidence of much easily-gotten gear in flocks 
and herds. For the lands of the clan were princely 
in extent, bought from the old Spaniards for a 
song. The two or three brothers and sisters of 
younger years avoided us, and I was treated with 
the usual Southern hospitality due to a stranger 
boy. It was the custom there for lads to ex- 
change these informal hospitalities without let or 
hindrance. 

I was thinking of nothing but the famous trout 
pool, and, not long after daybreak, we had been 
regaled with bacon and eggs, coffee and biscuit, 
and, saddling up, we ascended the wild glen sev- 
eral miles. It was the time of life’s ambrosial 


76 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 

morning, and a wilder scene of beauty never met 
my eyes than that lonely canyon on the Santa 
Cruz hills. Quail whirred away before us with 
stormy burst, the gray squirrel chattered in the 
trees, the hare fled before us, and the big blue 
pigeons hovered around all de(iant of our innocent 
fishing poles. 

But, when we tied our horses behind a great 
clump of laurel, and I was cautiously led to an 
overhanging rock, I saw below me a great boil- 
ing black pool, hollowed out by a perpendicular 
waterfall dropping twenty feet over a ledge of 
hard rock that the stream could not wear away. 
The pool was some two hundred feet in diameter. 
“ They’re in there, dead oodles of them,” gasped 
my friend. I was the monopolist of the excur- 
sion, for I had paid in advance, and he was pledged 
not to fish ! I can never forget the thrill with which 
I saw a great trout rise, instanter, at my first cast. 
I forgot all my surroundings for the next thirty 
minutes, for I had landed nineteen superb brook 
trout, weighing, when cleaned, twenty-seven 
pounds. “ Now, that’s enough for once,” ex- 
claimed the “ proprietor.” “ I don’t want no one 
ever to know, but you and I, what fish is in the 
pool.” 

And, though excited and elated with the electric 
dash of the splendid imprisoned fish, I was forced 
to discontinue. The creek ran out of the boiling- 
pool in a thin shallow of low sandy beach, and the 
beautiful captives there were fattened with store 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 77 

of worm, and grub, and butterfly brought down 
by the current. I never saw such a fishing pool 
before, nor, this one since ! 

As we slowly retraced our way to the ranch, 
we laid out a quail and squirrel hunt, and I was a 
tired and happy sportsman as we returned laden 
with game after dark. I had packed my fish with 
care in two saddle bags, with grass and cool 
leaves, and I regretted the long foray of the day 
which prevented me from riding home to Santa 
Cruz. 

The family had dined when we returned, and 
the Chinese cook set out the remains of the din- 
ner for us without a word. We made a hearty 
meal, and I was just finishing the evening toilet 
of my horse, when one of the youngsters came 
down and called my companion, who was attend- 
ing to his own favorite animal. The heir of a 
great estate, he came and went as he listed, igno- 
rant of school, and growing up as wild as a young 
Scythian. He came running back, and, saddling 
his horse in a jiffy, cried : “ I’ve got to go on a 
message for the old man ! It’s fifteen miles to 
Sayante, and it’ll be long after midnight, when I 
get back. You just go to my room and turn in.” 

I smoked a surreptitious pipe in the corral, and, 
finally becoming lonely, wandered into the 
house, and throwing off my clothes, went to sleep 
in the youth’s room. I was avrakened in a couple 
of hours by loud and earnest talking. I could 
hear the shuffling of feet, the clinking of glasses, 


78 THE PIRATE WILLIAMS LANDING 

and, to my astonishment, there seemed to be forty 
or fifty men gathered in the great living rooms of 
the ranch house. I crept to the door of my dark- 
ened room, which was a little ajar, and saw that a 
hardy band of frontiersmen were crowded into 
the house. With a trembling hand, I closed the 
little door tightly, and turned the button of the 
simple fastening. Soon the bottle circulated, and 
shouts and cries rose which told me that I was a 
secret witness of a meeting of the Knights of the 
Golden Circle. I examined the little room on the 
first floor and found that there was a window 
which I could slip out of, and friendly shrubbery 
to cover me. I dared not move around, and so, I 
lay quiet and heard the hidden story of the splen- 
did schooner lying at the buoy outside. 

There were sailors and men to be picked for her 
from the fleet of the mill-owners. There were 
people who were to come to take her out to sea, 
and there was “ heavy machinery ” and “ boxed 
iron castings,” which would be loaded by means 
of the powerful hoisting machinery. I found out 
soon where the stolen cannon had gone ! It was 
hidden somewhere ready to be placed upon the 
schooner. And, bit by bit, the whole outfit was 
being got together for a heavy armament of the 
schooner I had seen. The men were to secretly 
assemble, and, when all was ready, the peaceful- 
looking boat would stand out into the track of the 
Pacific Mail steamers. A false deck cargo of light 
lumber would conceal the gun. 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 79 

And, with a reversed flag, the sign of distress, 
the steamer would be halted, and, between board- 
ing tactics and the guns, the gold shipment was to 
be secured. Men were to be put aboard the out- 
going steamer as steerage passengers who would 
spring to arms and aid in the capture. 

I might have heard more, but I crept into my 
clothes, and dropping out of the window, found 
my way down to the barn. In ten minutes, I was 
stealing down the glen, for I had no trouble in 
leaving the house surrounded with forty or fifty 
horses tied to the shade trees. I had a very good 
excuse for a lonely boy’s idea of riding home, but, a 
better one burned in my bosom. The moment the 
glen widened I rode off the road and soon was 
working my way down the coast road. No one at 
the ranch knew whence I came, none whither I had 
gone,'Save the lad, who sagely concluded that I had 
got tired and gone home. I was too stunned and 
excited to take any unusual precautions save rid- 
ing off the road. I had saved my precious catch of 
trout, and my fishing gear was in the barn with 
my saddle-bags. If my face had been seen or my 
name been known, I might have fared badly. But 
the gathered delegates were all trusty men from 
the canyons around, and none rode down the bleak 
wind swept coast to Santa Cruz. 

I arrived at home near daybreak, and it was not 
long before two or three of the most prudent of 
the Union League knew the strange story of my ex- 
perience. The whole scheme was in embryo, the 


8o 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


scheme just hatching out. It happened that one 
of the lime shippers, a man of great wealth and 
vigor, was a pronounced Union man. To him, the 
frustration of the scheme was intrusted. 

It was not desirable to precipitate a local con- 
flict. We feared the results of individual ven- 
geance, and by a wise discretion, the Union League 
smuggled a few good men into the employ of the 
landing crew. One or two government detectives 
watched all future shipments from San Francisco 
to Williams Landing. There were several little 
buildings run up at Williams Landing, where a 
‘‘store’' suddenly blossomed out. There were 
gradual changes in the command of the schooners 
bringing freight, and every vessel had a detective 
on board. There were no arrests of suspected 
members of the unlawful gathering, but, that 
branch of the “ Knights ” never flourished after- 
ward ! 

It was found out later that the conspirators be- 
came alarmed at the control of the landing going 
gradually out of their hands, and so, the plan was 
substantially changed. The beautiful schooner 
soon left the buoy outside the natural drydock. 
Even the dull frontiersman could see that their 
game had been mysteriously stopped. 

And, bit by bit, some heavy packages were re- 
turned to San Francisco consigned “to order.” 
All this was done under the keen eyes of 
Federal officials. It was eight months after my 
discovery that the expedition was really cap. 


THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 


8i 


tured at the wharves at San Francisco, where 
the fine schooner was ostensibly being loaded 
with heavy machinery ” for Mexico ! The 
breaking of a tackle exposing some contraband of 
war, and the pouncing down of the United States 
detectives who had followed part of the goods 
back, caused three very able Southern schemers to 
spend some years in prison, after being tried for 
piracy. The whole coast from Panama to Van- 
couver was closely watched thereafter, and the 
foolhardy attempt was not repeated during the war. 
And, for many long years very few of the local 
wiseacres knew that a boy’s fishing trip led to the 
Pirate of Williams Landing ” going out of butU 
ness / 




THE WHITE INDIAN 


BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
















THE WHITE INDIAN. 


In the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, 
there were few localities in the still unsettled west 
more dangerous for residence than Pinal, Gila, and 
Graham counties, Arizona. Situated on the 
upper waters of the Gila River, they were con- 
tinually traversed by parties of emigrants moving 
along the old Southern Overland Road. 

The whole trail from El Paso to Fort Yuma was 
infested with deserters, disbanded guerrilla sol- 
diers, Mexican horse thieves, and villains of every 
description, for the war had left its fearful legacy 
of utter demoralization. 

. There was not a single military post in the greac 
triangular plain of Southern Arizona, once in- 
habited by a powerful and peaceful people. The 
dwellers in the Casas Grandes have left an area of 
a thousand square miles covered with fragments 
of their beautiful pottery. Their irrigating 
ditches, their mud-walled forts, their four-story 
houses of sun-dried bricks, and all the vestiges of 
a forgotten life, tell of a great vanished people who 
were cornplanters and owners of vast herds of 
sheep. It seems that neat cattle and the horse 
came in later, with the Conquisadores. 


86 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


The Gila River, a priceless boon to the traveler, 
winds from its source in the New Mexican moun- 
tains, eight hundred miles to its junction with the 
mighty Colorado at Fort Yuma. Its green banks 
broke the awful monotony ot the burning, bare 
rocks, gray, sandy wastes, cactus plains, and 
chapparal groves, which swept from Point 
Isabel, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, to San 
Diego on the far shores of California. The arable 
lands along the Gila, from three to twenty miles 
wide, then afforded a home to the peaceful Pimas, 
Papagoes, and Maricopas — the three friendly tribes 
whose pride is that they have never seen the color 
of a white man’s blood. 

But, hanging high over the valley dwellers, 
from the peaks of the White Mountains and the 
Black Hills, the baleful signal fires of the Apaches 
glittered by night, giving warning of any arids 
from the three strong army posts at Fort 
McDowell, Camp Grant and Prescott. These 
with Fort Yuma and Fort Mohave were the 
central strongholds of the dispirited troops. A 
series of isolated mountains breaking across the 
three counties named gave an ample opportunity 
for the murderous Apaches to steal over from 
their interior fastnesses of Arizona to the Sierra 
Madres of Sonora. These hiding places were 
impregnable. Only the Apaches knew the hid- 
den water holes. In the canyons of the Salt 
River and Gila range, the red-handed hill dwell- 
ers mustered, and watching for small trains, weak 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


87 


;scorts, and parties of half-armed emigrants, they 
swooped down upon them, with fiendish atrocity. 
The most valuable captured horses were run over 
to Sonora and sold at half price, the easy-going 
Mexicans selling these same Apaches cartridges 
and guns. As on the upper Missouri, a guilty 
profit-seeking left one-half of the white commu- 
nity victims of the wiles of the other. Cattle and 
sheep were driven, when captured, into the con- 
cealed villages of the Apaches, the horses stolen 
in Arizona and Sonora always being traded off. 

The Apache marauders were essentially foot 
Indians and adepts in following on after careless 
travelers, always swooping down when the victory 
was a foregone conclusion. Dodging the troops, 
they made their raids before and behind the 
soldiers, concealing themselves when hard pressed 
with wonderful skill. I have seen twenty Indians 
hide themselves in a circle of two hundred yards, 
and, I was forced to give up, and call them out of 
their wonderfully ingenious concealment. 

An abandoned acequia, a trifling gully, sufficed 
to hide at short notice a murderous band of twenty 
to forty. In 1868, there was not a rail laid in Ari- 
zona, nor, anything but an adobe to be seen from 
Fort Yuma to Tucson. The respectable whites 
on the Gila ended at Florence, and a few scattered 
ranches on the upper Gila were tenanted by rene- 
gades and castaways who had some mysterious 
freemasonry binding them to all wrongdoers. 

In those days, the man going through McDowell 


88 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


Canyon, the Picacho, or to Prescott, waited for 
some passing escort or joined other well-armed 
travelers. For, verily a man took his life in his 
own hand. On one occasion, I camped with ten 
men on the wild waste north of the Gila, and we 
counted seventeen Indian fires blazing forth the 
Apaches’ stern defiance to the white man and his 
menace to the Spaniards whom he has harried for 
two hundred years ! “ Hardly more than one- 

half a man to a camp,” said Big Blair,” my fron- 
tier guide, laughing grimly. Ten men and 
seventeen Indian fires.” I was too much busied 
with certain bitter reflections on the policy of 
sending soldiers out in knots, to fight Apaches in 
droves, to appreciate Blair’s wit ! 

A continual nefarious traffic and crossing from 
Arizona to Sonora for years had enriched many un- 
scrupulous trading Mexicans. The Apaches dis- 
dained chaffering and paid royally in captured 
horses, wagons, trinkets, jewels, and money, for 
the three things they craved — rum, cartridges, and 
weapons. 

But, it became apparent at last in the unerring 
success of the Apaches’ raids on the upper Gila, 
that they were aided by keen-witted friends along 
the lines of the Gila. Valuable horses stolen from 
Sonora were distributed along the Gila, their 
brands artfully altered ; government arms and 
ammunition were found in the few Apache camps 
raided, for the Indians, from their fastnesses, could 
often watch the troops toiling on for days and 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


89 


elude them with the greatest ease. But, several 
well-planned descents of the troops signally failed 
in the fall of '68, and a general feeling of indignation 
arose against the treacherous Americans who would 
aid the cruelest murderers of the West. For, there 
seemed to be a fiendish delight in the Apaches' 
work of devastation. Whole trains of half-guarded 
freight wagons had been tipped over into the can- 
yons, the hamstrung mules following the wrecked 
vehicles. 

The good faith of the Pimos, Papagoes, and 
Maricopas was stainless, for twice a year, they 
gathered, and sweeping north of the Gila in par- 
ties of two or three hundred, drove in the Apache 
outposts, fighting some very creditable skirmishes. 
The work could not be done from the stations 
along the Gila, for the Apaches would not dare to 
peaceably exchange their Sonora horses, Mexican 
plunder, and the spoils of the American for cart- 
ridges, weapons, and rum. There was an un- 
written code of death to the man who sold these 
things to Indians. The county officials and army 
officers decided that there must be a meeting place 
for these exchanges, or, that some of the ranches 
of the upper Gila were tenanted by renegades, 
who made the Apaches' work effective. And yet, 
with a great deal of quiet scouting, no traces were 
discovered of the Apaches' secret friends. 

In a few months, the plunder of ingoing and out- 
coming trains in the vicinity of the junction of the 
San Pedro and Gila became alarming. Though 


90 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


some trains would move south between Desert 
Peak and the Santa Catalina Range, others follow 
the San Pedro, and yet others, linger along in sight 
of the green oasis of the Gila, the record of re- 
lentless murder and successful surprise was an 
astonishing one. 

It soon became a self-evident truth that the 
Apaches were skillfully handled and dodged across 
the desert, from the Mexican to the American 
side, and were directed with a foreknowledge of 
the possible plunder. Only the great trains of 
twenty prairie schooners hauling the goods for 
Tucson, Arizona’s largest city, from the head of 
steam navigation at Fort Yuma, were left un- 
attacked. Each wagon, with four well-armed men, 
was a moving fortification. The army escorts, in 
parties of twenty, were safe, for the breechloader 
was too much then for the Apaches’ old guns. 
Like all American Indians, the Apaches were ab- 
solutely destitute of mechanical ability, being un- 
able to repair the slightest defect in a gun or its 
mechanism. There were no bands of hostile Mexi- 
cans settled upon the upper Gila, and the discov- 
ery of some arms taken from dead Apaches, which 
had been neatly repaired, proved at last that the 
hated, shock-headed, stunted murderers had secret 
friends in the settlements near by. 

I had pondered long over this situation of affairs 
and made up my mind that the clearing house of 
this frontier villainy, the secret headquarters of the 
organized raids, was near the junction of the San 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


91 


Pedro and Gila. There were six ranges of moun- 
tains on the south for observation posts and hiding 
places, and, a fan-like arrangement of hills and 
gullys north of the river leading into Apachedom, 
where King Cochise reigned supreme. 

And so, when I was sent on a quest as far as San 
Carlos and Mount Trumbull, I determined to keep 
m}’^ eyes and ears open. I had a sergeant and ten 
reliable cavalry men, and I had promised the men 
a handsome reward for any discovery of note. 
Especially in the little stations along the lonely 
route, I bade them be on the lookout for men 
trying to buy their carbines or ammunition or the 
government revolvers. I made up my mind that 
if I could trap the illicit traders, I might find 
the much desired missing link. And, with three 
friendly Indians, I visited every ranch on the Gila 
from Parker’s Peak to San Carlos. 

We had stopped at a squalid little clump of 
jacales near the junction of the San Pedro, and 
carefully made our camp for the night. To each 
man, his horse and arms represented his life, and 
the four pack mules loaded with rations repre- 
sented the Delmonico part of Arizona army life, 
bacon, coffee, and hard tack. There were two or 
three frowsy Mexican women lounging around, 
and I narrowly examined the whole “ outfit,” as 
we chaffered for chickens and eggs. A few 
thatched huts, a couple of iron pots, a bit of corn 
land, and a scratchy selection of the smaller ani- 
mals were the entire visible wealth of the colony. 


92 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


One or two Indian women, a sick Mexican, and a 
couple of Papagoes, playing cards on a horse 
blanket, made up the personnel. 

With a sense of the menacing nearness of the 
Tortilla Mountains, I posted a guard of two men, 
to be relieved every two hours, over the horses 
and mules, which were hobbled and loosely tied 
with long picket ropes. I divided the labors with 
the Sergeant of inspecting the camp every two 
hours, for the absence of men seemed to be a sus- 
picious feature of the little settlement. 

It was four o’clock in the morning, when the 
sentinel whom I had just changed, brought his gun 
down to an order, and whispered, “ Lieutenant, I 
wish to speak to you, privately.” We wandered 
away, out of earshot, and my steady old soldier, 
Sidney, gave me the first clue of importance as to 
the vicinity of the evil-minded league. I had no 
fatih in the light cavalry carbine, and so, had armed 
my eleven men with the reliable old long Spring- 
field infantry gun, good to-day to kill a man every 
time, at a thousand yards. 

“ I was walkin’ post. Lieutenant, when one of the 
men, hanging around here, slipped up and offered 
me some whisky. Time was when it would have 
been a temptation ! I couldn’t see the fellow’s 
face, but he had no hat on, and bushy hair, and 
he was rigged out in Mexican style. Then, he ups 
and offers to buy my gun and cartridges. I would 
have called the Sergeant, but, I remembered what 
you told me, and, so I jollied him on, a bit. ‘ Y ou’re 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


93 


going on up country toward Dragoon Springs ? * 
he said, ‘ and, of course, the Lieutenant will follow 
the Gila back again. If you’ll fix it when you 
stop over here, so that we can get five or six of 
the big army rifles, and all the cartridges you can 
steal, I’ll give you a hundred dollars a gun, in 
greenbacks, and a dollar a cartridge.’ 

“ I led him on a bit, and he agreed it wouldn’t 
do to steal the guns on the trip up. ‘No ! The 
Lieutenant is a fighting man. He would tie up 
every man in sight, till the missing rifles were 
produced. But, on the way home, I can fix it so 
as to give you the money for the whole eleven.’ ” 
“ Do you live at this ranch ? ” said I, and then 
he said, pointing to a little island in the Gila, 
‘ Come over there at daybreak, and I’ll talk things 
over with you. I’ll give you twenty bottles of 
whisky for twenty cartridges. We are short of 
the government ammunition, and we don’t kill 
soldiers enough, to keep us going.’ ” 

The stout sentinel paused, “ Now, what’s my 
tip. Sir ? ” I thought over the situation briefly. 
“ I am determined to probe this matter, Sidney,” 
said I ; “ Come to my tent at daybreak. I will 
give you twenty fresh metallic rifle cartridges. 
Let Maxon, your chum, follow you over there at 
daybreak, ready with his gun and belt. Sell this 
fellow the cartridges for the twenty bottles of 
whisky, and, if he really offers the hundred dol- 
lars in good currency, let him have Maxon’s gun ! 
Be sure and keep the number on the gun. It may 


94 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


turn up in a strange place yet. Get all the points 
on what kind of a lair this fellow has. He speaks 
good English ? ” 

^‘Just as clear as the Regimental Adjutant/' 
laughed Sidney. 

All right, my man ! I’ll give you an extra re- 
volver, and don’t either of you stir a foot further 
than the place where he meets you. And, size 
him up for good ! ” 

I turned in, thinking over the strange occurrence, 
and at daybreak, lazily gave the faithful soldier 
two packs of the cartridges almost priceless then 
in Arizona. Freight at fifteen cents a pound did 
not cheapen Uncle Sam’s powder and lead. The 
camp was struck and the horses saddled, when 
Sidney and Maxon returned. 

I heard their brief report, “ All right. Sir ; ” and 
Sidney handed me five twenty-dollar bills. “That’s 
the price of the gun. Sir, we buried the whisky 
down at the river bank ! ” 

“ Get your breakfast, men, and I’ll send the 
Sergeant with you to bring the whisky in. We 
will serve it out on the march in regular grog 
rations.” 

I was careful to show no uneasiness, for I knew 
the loafing women Avere perhaps, trained spies, 
and I strolled away from the camp and examined 
the five bills. They were bright and new, and yet 
on one of them, were several spots of unmistak- 
able blood. 

The murder of a mine paymaster on the Apache 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


95 


Pass road two months before, with fourteen thou- 
sand dollars in currency, flashed upon my mind. 
There were no banks in Arizona then, and the 
quartermaster’s cash and Government paymaster’s 
funds made up most of the circulation. I remem- 
bered that that sum had been turned over by the 
Tucson quartermaster’s agent, in fresh funds, in 
return for the company’s draft on the Sub-Treasury 
at San Francisco. I wonder,” I began, as I 
spurred my good old dragoon horse Stonewall ” 
away, and called for Maxon and Sidney to take 
the advance, “ I wonder, if I have struck the nest 
of ‘ white traitors ! ’ ” 

Riding out in the advance, I listened to Sidney’s 
story, The fellow is an American, sure enough, 
though he wears no hat and his hair is as bushy 
as an Apache’s. A Mexican shirt, a pair of hide 
trousers, soldier’s shoes and a broad buckskin 
band around his middle, is his entire rig. 

“ He’s got a whole lot of whisky cached over 
there in the sand, and he has built a little hut. I 
don’t know what he wants so many guns for ! He 
had a dozen old guns lying around there, and he 
has an anvil, a vice, a fiddle drill, and a few odd 
tools. And he’s a rare, shy bird, for he wouldn’t 
come over the river with us, but sent an Injun 
woman down to the river to show us the ford. 
He had a whole lot of bills. The Injun woman 
looks like an Apache, too, blame me, if she don’t. 
He jabbered to her in fine shape.” 

I started at the name “ Apache,” for, in half a 


96 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


day, that squaw could rouse any one of a dozen 
hostile camps in the big bend of the Gila. 

“ And what did he propose ? ” I queried. 

He wouldn’t talk to Maxon, but he offered to 
deposit a hundred dollars a gun, cash, if I could help 
the women at this station steal all the guns when 
we come back. ^ I must have those guns,’ he said, 
‘ and sooner than lose them, I’ll double the money. 
Y ou fix it so the command will stay a few days at the 
ranch, on your return,’ he said. ^ Some of the men 
can play off sick — “ lame old soldier,” and, all that.’ 

I did not care to excite Sidney’s suspicions of 
my ultimate object, but, I carefully recorded the 
number of the gun, 19142, bearing the govern- 
ment eagle and the mark, “ Springfield, Mass.” 

I determined, during the march to San Carlos, 
to ask the nearest responsible officer to send down 
one or two keen frontiersmen, and a secret de- 
tachment to watch the suspicious rancho. The 
exorbitant prices to be paid, indicated to me a 
desire of some nefarious parties to get hold of a 
dozen of the invincible,wicked, long infantry guns. 

Two days after leaving San Pedro, I met a 
pretty strong detachment of private prospectors, 
on their way back to San Diego. They were 
mostly Southern men, and had served in the 
war, whose echoes were hardly settled. Well- 
mounted, well-armed, and careless in their daring, 
they straggled along in knots of two and three, 
with no attempt at any precautions. A couple 
of light wagons contained their commissary 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


97 


stores, and the hardy Texans and Missourians 
slept al fresco. 

W e camped not very far from each other, and I 
rode over in the starlight with a couple of men, to 
warn the commander of the suspicious community 
on the San Pedro. I told the Major all that was 
prudent (there is always a Major where there are 
three Southern men), and he laughed gayly. 

“VVe will give them a healthy wrassle,” he 
cried. “ There’s only one thing with Injuns : 
Never let ’em get high ground, and my men can 
fight on the individual plan. But, I’m obliged^ 
all the same.” 

I finally persuaded the Major to pass by the 
San Pedro hovels and camp beyond, in the open. 
“ Your splendid stock is a temptation.” And, as 
my command pressed on to San Carlos, I soon 
forgot my rollicking Southern friends. 

I had passed a dozen trains of the dejected-look- 
ing Southern emigrants who wander across the 
continent from Arkansas to San Bernardino, in a 
fitful restlessness. The patient jaded women, the 
passive oxen, the frowsy children, the bushy- 
bearded men, rifle on shoulder, I well knew the 
type, but I served as volunteer doctor, news- 
monger, topographer, relief agent, and general 
desert angel ” to these shiftless ones who had left 
one pretty pore country ” to find another, and 
were now wandering along to Texas, where land 
was a drug. The cheerful Apache reminder of a 
burned wagon train and scattered human bones 


98 


tHE WHITE INDIAN 


enlivened my route and, in one place, traced with 
burnt sticks and blood upon the shining rocks, 
were hideous insults to the bravery of the whites. 

Sudden orders at San Carlos sent me whirling 
back down the Gila, traveling as the crow flies, 
and cutting off all the bends in the road. Half rest 
and double marching made it a careworn squad 
which rattled into Florence, and I was without 
news of the river for a fortnight. The spectacle 
of my friend, the southern Major, seated in front 
of the “ Robert E. Lee House,” recalled me to the 
intrigues of the San Pedro scoundrel. The 
Major’s right arm was scientifically swung in 
bloody bandages, and he hesitated not to hail me 
with the time-honored invitation, “ Hello, Lieuten- 
ant! Come and have a drink.” I dismounted, 
and was soon the recipient of many professions of 
his undying gratitude. 

While the Sergeant camped the command, I 
listened to the bronzed wanderer’s story. “ I put 
it up you were blowing a little about that corner 
up there on the river, but, somehow, I knew you 
would have no real interest in giving us a fill. 
And so, I minded your advice and passed on by 
there and camped, only sending a couple of men 
down to buy some milk, eggs, and chickens. I 
kept a running guard over the camp and hitched 
the mules with both chains and halters. In the 
morning, I found a regular trail beaten in the 
chapparral all around us, but we had four men on 
guard, and there was no chance for a stampede. 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


99 


Then, when we pulled out toward Florence, I 
gave every man his orders. About ten o’clock, we 
came to a long ravine with some gullies just cal- 
culated to hide a bunch of Injuns in each. I sent 
a couple of men on, into the pass, and we threw 
out a couple more flankers on the hills. My two 
poor men were just clearing the pass when a cloud 
of Apaches rose up all around us. We made one 
wild dash for high ground, and then spread to 
fight them, for they expected to see us huddle up 
below. 

“ It was the hottest little fight you want to see, 
and yet, in half an hour, we had them whipped ! 
They scrambled away in the rocks, but, we had 
three dead men and two severely wounded. 

They had followed on and passed us in the 
night, and laid for us. There was one fellow be- 
hind some rocks on a low mound, who led them 
on, and he had one of your big army guns. We 
got him cut off, after he had killed two of our 
people, and I then took a hand, myself, and 
stationed three men to keep alternately firing at 
him, as he tried to play snake, and wiggle out of 
range. Just before I thought he was laid out, he 
bored me through the forearm with an ounce 
bullet, and I then sent the boys over to strip him. 
He laid still till they were on the knoll and then, 
began to fire a revolver at the astonished men. 
He died fighting like a rat, and cursing in good 
round English. He was all got up in full Apache 
rig, and, Injun color, but, when we cut the broad 
^ of C« 


100 


THE WHITE INDIAN 


band of buckskin off him, his body was white as 
snow. He was the head devil of the outfit — a 
white Apache — too. The boys just riddled him 
with bullets ! ” 

I was astounded, but I at once demanded to see 
the gun the dead outlaw had borne. There was 
the tell-tale number 19142 on the barrel. That 
place should be cleaned out,” I sternly said. 

“ My dear boy,” cried the wounded Major, the 
boys went up and burned the whole shebang. 
They did not leave a stake standing. They found 
any amount of plunder hidden on the island which 
has been recognized as stolen in Apache raids. 
There was a good round sum of money, and, 
worse and more of it, there were papers and bills 
found in his den addressed ‘ Charles Carter, Fron- 
teras, Mexico,’ all for guns, ammunition, and 
whisky. We took the trouble to bring this chap’s 
head along, and it’s in the saloon there, in a big jar 
of his own whisky. One or two Arizona men here 
recognize him as a man they have seen dealing in 
splendid horses at Fronteras, Magdalena, and 
Hermosillo. He has been the head sneak for 
these fellows here, no doubt, and, with the women, 
piped off travelers and planned the attacks.” 

I led Sidney into the saloon and showed the 
gaping soldier the dead renegade’s head! “ Is 
that the man who bought your gun ? ” He ^ 
nodded gravely. “ Take it back now,” I said. 
‘‘The Apaches will need another general ad- 
vance agent ! ” 


SNOWED IN 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE. 



SNOWED IN. 


I WAS remarkably light-hearted on the twentieth 
of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, as 
I mounted my horse to leave Round Valley, Men- 
docino County, California. The train of my fol- 
lowers was a reproduction of Falstaff’s army! 
“ Look out for these people, they’re an ornery lot 
— that’s what they are,” grumbled the assistant 
agent at the Round Valley Indian Reservation. 
The white hangers-on of the Reservation were 
grinning in a secret delight, as my charger was led 
forth. 

As an Engineer Officer and Aide-de-camp of the 
commanding general of the military division of 
the Pacific, I had been sent up to Round Valley 
to lay off an extensive reservation for the five or 
six thousand Indians huddled into beautiful Round 
Valley. 

Thirty by fifty miles in its elliptical dimensions, 
it is well watered and surrounded with a first and 
second battlement of hills and mountains, sweeping 
away to the east toward the magnificent peaks of 
the Sierras forming the watershed of the Sacra- 
mento River. 

Eel River adroitly running around it, with the 


SNOWED IN 


to4 

encircling mountains, made either route of de- 
parture sufficiently dangerous. The trail from 
Ukiah, which I used in entering the valley, was a 
“ rocky road to Dublin,” and my theodolites, 
levels, and engineering paraphernalia had suffered 
from a succession of mishaps. I had passed a 
gorge where the remains of a cottage piano lay, a 
thousand feet below, still strapped to the remains 
of two army mules who stubbornly essayed to go 
different ways, and shared a common fate. 

Five months among the squatters of Round 
Valley had persuaded me of the utter villainy of 
the frontier brutes encroaching upon the vanishing 
redmen. I could get no honest counsels from 
any of them ! 

The army post at Camp Wright was governed 
by a few infantry officers who delighted in guying 
a tenderfoot staff officer, and my “ blanket order ” 
for supplies and assistance might as well have been 
“ writ in water,” like Keat’s epitaph. When all 
of these people painted to me the horrors of the 
Cahto trail, leading fifty miles northwest, I in- 
stantly decided to leave the valley by that route. 
The air was crisp and cold, the hunter’s hallo and 
the woodman’s ax rang thin and clear, and blankets 
and hot toddy were at a premium. 

My work was all done. 1 had laid offlines which 
doubled the lands of the hill tribes, giving them 
ample woodland, hunting and fishing grounds, and 
an area to gather the sweet acorns for their meal. 
The deer and bear of the forests, the swarming 


SNOWED IN 


105 

salmon and trout of the river, the woodland run 
for their cattle au i mast bearing oak forests for 
their pigs, were prime necessities to the Indians. 

As I gazed around at the five hundred wick-i- 
ups with the crowding throngs of restless-eyed 
copper-hued savages, I felt an honest pride in tak- 
ing leave of my aboriginal wards. The great 
general who fought the battle of Nashville had 
bidden me roll back the lines of the thieving 
squatters and leave to the plundered Indians room 
enough on their own land to live in peace, in their 
own way. I had tried to do my duty. I felt, as I 
shook hands with the Indian agent and the principal 
chiefs, that I had done so. I had taken a dozen 
chiefs of the Wyelackies, Pitt Rivers, Diggers, 
Snakes, and Modocs, around the lines, which I left 
doubly blazed in the forests, and showed them the 
fifty corner posts marking the angles of their ter- 
ritory. 

This policy of General George H. Thomas in 
separating the spoiler and the spoiled was a wise 
one, and it kept peace for twenty years in Round 
Valley, until disease and rum have obliterated the 
tribes with whom I spent an exciting five months. 
The contrary policy, later, brought on the Modoc 
war, and Joseph’s war in the lapse of a few years. 
These were wars as creditable to the Indians as 
Thermopylas’s battle was to the Greeks ! The 
costly tribute of the blood of General Canby and 
his gallant officers, the battle of the Clearwater 
and the millions uselessly spent on the Modoc and 


io6 


SNOWED IN 


Joseph campaigns, were the logical result of the 
brutal encroachments of the whites. 

I realized that I left hardly a white friend in 
Round Valley as I dispatched my train, with all my 
baggage, engineering implements, and three days’ 
rations. A dozen notable Indians, half of them 
armed with axes, two or three mule-drivers, and 

Tuttle,” the head Reservation packer, were my 
attendants. 

Are you armed ? ” said the retired army Cap- 
tain, who was the local Indian agent. I smiled and 
pointed to Tuttle’s revolver, as that bronze-faced 
youth sat gracefully upright on a wild broncho, 
then trying to scatter him over an acre of ground. 
“ You need an escort ! ” sternly said the Captain, 
as he sent a man galloping on in advance to Camp 
Wright. 

The last good-by was said, and I lightly vaulted 
upon my horse. At twenty-three, I considered 
myself a rough rider, and my departure from the 
Round Valley Indian Reservation taxed all the 
powers of a blended Californian and West Point 
riding experience. We were a half-mile away 
from the Reservation when the thin-breasted, wall- 
eyed, sorrel demon, from sheer exhaustion, allowed 
Tuttle to rein up near me. The frontier youth 
had lost his hat in the race ; his gay-colored 
neckerchief shone saucily out over his blue riding 
jerkin, and he laughed heartily as he said : “ Lieu- 
tenant ! That’s the Hoopa mare that they have sent 
over for you ! The meanest piece of horseflesh 


SNOWED IN 


107 


that I ever mounted, and Fve been a vaquero since 
boyhood. They always send a new officer some- 
thing calculated to break his neck ! ” 

I grimly appreciated the little brotherly joke^ 
and determined to ride that Hoopa mare around 
the line of officers’ quarters as I left the fort, after 
saying officially farewell, so as to show the ladies 
of Camp Wright that I appreciated the joke. 

At the cross roads, half way to Camp Wright, 
several loaferly hangers-on at the one valley store 
cheered me with merry predictions. While one 
said, “ Lootenant, the river is up ! You’ll have to 
swim the Cahto crossing. The mail-rider was 
drowned there three days ago ! ” — another, gazing 
at the mackerel sky, lazily drawled, “You’ll get 
snow enough on the big divide ! Chances are, 
you’ll not make the trip ! ” I gladly rode away 
after Tuttle had bought his tobacco and a few 
knick knacks, and I noticed that he rode close 
behind me, until we were well out of rifle shot. 
We had passed and repassed our train once or 
twice. I groaned as I saw the cherished prop- 
erty of the Corps of Engineers gyrating around 
in that graceful figure known as the “ Blazing 
Star,” but, my work was done, the sketch, map, 
and the survey notes, later approved by the Presi- 
dent of the United States, were in my bosom, and 
so, I rode happily along with both eyes fixed 
upon the Hoopa mare’s ears. I delighted in 
giving that fiend all the riding she needed 
before we reached the beautiful post of Camp 


SNOWED IN 


loS 

Wright, a memorial to General Tom Jordan, 
who reluctantly left the hunter’s paradise he had 
built, to flourish as Chief of Staff to Beauregard, 
at Bull Run. 

“Ye’re goin’ to get some soldiers here, are ye 
not?” thoughtfully said Tuttle, as we neared the 
camp. 

“ I believe so !” I carelessly replied. 

“ Wall ! I hope ye will, Lootenant ! ” shyly said 
young Tuttle. “ I ain’t afeard of no man, but 
them scrubs back there, allowed as some of them 
might follow you, and put a ball through you for 
what ye’ve done for the Injuns. Ye’re mighty on- 
popular here. Ef 1 only had my Winchester,” he 
said, with a vain regret. There was no mistaking 
his sincerity ! 

I recalled, with indignation, a base attempt to 
bully me, by underhand suggestion, on my begin- 
ning my work. I had mapped all the pretended 
claims, and at one of my camps a committee of 
three were ushered out at the muzzle of a heavy 
rifle for certain insulting proposals. I knew that 
stages had been robbed on the trail, an army pay- 
I master trapped and left for dead, and, when I found 
four infantrymen equipped with their heavy 
Springfields and a double allowance of ammuni- 
tion, I understood the agent’s foresight. It was 
only on my return to San Francisco, three hun- 
dred miles away, that I learned of a secret plan to 
murder me and destroy my survey notes. Even 
that desperate move would only have postponed 


SNOWED IN 


109 


the dispossessing of the valley squatter rogues for 
some years. 

An extra mule, with the rations for the four men 
for a week, was added to my train, and, after a 
delay of an hour, my little command was hidden 
from sight in the rolling hills to the west of the 
fort ! Short ceremony I made of the adieux, as 
between the lurking murderers and the courtesy 
of the Hoopa mare, I left nothing behind me to 
increase “ the sweet sorrow of parting ! ” A 
friendly lieutenant of infantry had handed me his 
belt and army six-shooter, without a word of ex- 
planation. “ You can send it back by Corporal 
Yeackle!” he remarked, and, I understood the 
significant pressure of his hand ! The one in dan- 
ger is always left to stumble along and find out 
the terrors of the road for himself! 

On our western pathway of fifty miles were 
several old abandoned cabins ; there was a mail 
station at Eel River with a rope ferry practicable 
when the river was not raging, and one steep range 
of high hills, backed by lofty mountains on either 
side of Eel River, lay between me and Cahto, 
where, by stage, I could descend the beautiful coast 
valleys, and reach headquarters at San Francisco 
from Petaluma. 

The Indians trotted along silently by the train, 
the woods rang with the staccato remarks of my 
mule packers, the four soldiers dragged along 
with the ambitionlqss stride of men who serve 
others in a perfunctory way, and, as the Hoopa 


110 


SNOWED IN 


mare postponed her deviltry until she had regained 
some strength, the simple frontiersman, Tuttle, 
entertained me with crisp tales of border feuds, 
family vendettas and Indian killing, both amateur 
and professional. The sun sloped to the west in 
the magnificent forests, the night-breeze swept 
down from the purple hills, and far to the north, 
gorgeous rose and gold and crimson colors played 
upon the majestic snowy summits of the pathless 
Sierras. 

Magnificent pines surrounded us, with gnarled 
firs, great full bosomed oaks, splendid red gleam- 
ing madronas, and acorn berry and wild plum 
were tempting the deer and bear. Great flights 
of quail, bevies of grouse, and chattering squirrels 
were aroused by our march. 

It was sundown when Tuttle galloped ahead to 
a deserted cabin hard by a gurgling spring. The 
whole tired cavalcade drew up around the welcome 
shelter. There were several pretty oak openings 
near us, and Tuttle’s foot was hardly on the ground 
before '' Captain Jim,” the Wylackie chief, pointed 
to a superb buck, eyeing us, not three hundred 
yards away. Seizing the Corporal’s rifle, Tuttle 
sped away to get a broadside view. The ringing 
crack of his rifle called the Indians, and, ten 
minutes later, the buck was hanging from the poles 
of the thatched porch ! 

It was an ideal camp that night! The ruddy 
fire, the good cheer, fresh venison, army pork and 
tinned potatoes, coffee ad libitum^ and pipe k dis- 


SNOWED IN 


III 


cretion put me in a good humor. The moon drifted 
over the battlements of the Sierras, and the sigh- 
ing voices of the night recalled old days to me ! 

I had made Tuttle my second in command. I 
ordered the Corporal to stack the arms in a little 
shed “ lean-to,” where my blankets were laid down, 
and the poor soldiers, before a fire blazing in the 
old fireplace, squatted on the floor, played that 
army game of poker which never ends. I have 
seen soldiers without Bibles, but I never saw one 
without ‘‘ a deck of cards.” Professional etiquette 
prevented me associating with the fat German, 
Corporal Yeackle, the long-legged, saucer-eyed, 
Irish giant, Mulholland,” the mean-faced, ferret- 
eyed, renegade-looking American, Brown,” and 
soldier No. 4 — Riley — a hardened Irish soldier of 
the type, manufactured to order,” for the regular 
army. 

Tuttle was busied with his muleteers and the 
animals, and so, I passed an informal evening with 
the Indians, who were squatted around three 
fires in front of the cabin devouring the buck in 
short order. “ Captain Jim,” ‘‘ Bismarck,” “ Three 
Star,” ''Old Tom,” "Horace Greeley, "Sweet- 
bread,” " Running Rat,” and " Big Pappoose ” 
were the fanciful names of several of the gang 
representing three tribes, and of the other sullen, 
low-browed red men, two were destined to achieve 
a military fame — and — one to die on the gal- 
lows for killing an officer. It suddenly occurred 
to me that I would have Tuttle watch these un- 


II2 


SNOWED IN 


couth redmen, for, I fancied I saw a black bottle ! 
They had no arms, but I found that the kindly 
Indian Agent had given them five dollars each to 
insure their fidelity to my comfort as far as Cahto. 

With a word of caution to Tuttle, and a hint to 
the Corporal about the arms, I “ laid my brows 
upon the drifted leaves and dreamed.” I was 
almost case-hardened with six years of athletics 
and the last five months in these wild hills as any 
of the Indians, but, before morning I rolled over 
and over to avoid a penetrating cold which froze 
my very marrow. The first streakings of dawn 
found us all astir, and, to my dismay, there was 
six inches of snow on the ground, and the long, 
soft, feathery flakes were dropping incessantly and 
as thick as flocks of cotton wool. 

The breakfast was hastened in a gloomy silence. 
The Indians divided the remains of the deer’s car- 
cass, and when all the animals were brought up and 
packed, I saw Tuttle gazing at me with an air of 
concern. ‘‘What is it. Lieutenant?” he said, 
“Forward? There will be heavy snow on the 
divide. There are men who would turn back at 
once to Camp Wright. You might leave all this 
stuff and push on with me and one mule. We 
could surely force our way through to Cahto.” 

“ Tuttle,” I said, gravely, “ I must reach San 
Francisco. I must finish this map, and get the 
President’s proclamation out as soon as possible.” 

“Well, if ye’ve drawed yerbead, here goes! ” 

I feared to face his honest, inquiring eyes. I 


SNOWED IN 


”3 


knew that he was not sullen, and a braver man 
never drew breath. We were the last to leave the 
cabin, and the unwilling animals, the slouchy 
soldiers, the apathetic Indians, all staggered up 
trail, to where the open rocky knolls, the dim ra- 
vines, and precipitous ascents, to the top of the 
Eel River divide, made our journey a dismal one. 

The snow blew in our faces and soon blinded us. 
I managed to keep a pipe lighted, the trail became 
slippery, and the snow deeper and deeper. We 
passed three great black bears rolling over each 
other in the snow, and no one had curiosity 
enough for a shot. The forest was gloomy, the 
winds cut us sharply, and our spirits fell with the 
thermometer. Four hours of floundering along, 
with several of the animals down at one time, 
at last, exhausted the energies of the whole com- 
mand. It was not four o’clock when we entered 
a canyon by a creek leading to the last incline of 
the Eel River divide. A great oak forest showed 
the girdled trees of the tan-bark scalper, and a 
cabin invited us to its welcome shelter. It was 
strongly built and seemed to be a sort of Hospice 
de Saint Bernard station, though untenanted. 
There was a little room with a rude bunk, and 
some scattered straw and leaves. When the 
property was all under cover, the animals fed with 
grain and sheltered, and fire and food had relieved 
us, I watched Tuttle, silent and dispirited, seated 
before the fire drying his neckerchief. 

I began to realize my mistake, and I ruefully 


SNOWED IN 


II4 

watched the falling snow, now eighteen inches 
deep. The Indians were huddled on one side of 
the open cabin, my soldiers on the other, and the 
arms were stowed away in my little den. Only 
Tuttle and I had revolvers. The young frontiers- 
man understood the silent question of my eyes ! 

It’s a mighty hard game cut out for us here. 
I tell you what. Lieutenant, I’ve got to ride back 
to the reservation to-night. I can make it by ten 
o’clock. Your animals are plumb beat out. The 
grain will gone to-morrow. The food next day ! 
I’ll take a letter to the agent. He can send a 
dozen men up, each with two animals. You’ve 
got to stop here. I’ll bring you grub and grain. 
Then we will pick out the best mules, and take a 
half dozen good men. We can force you over to 
Eel River, once across, you can get to Cahto, and 
your stuff must stay here till spring — and then the 
quartermaster send it down. This trail will be 
closed in a week, for the whole winter.” 

A half hour’s argument could not change his 
resolution. “ I’m bound to see you through ! ” he 
cried, “ and, I’ll be back here the second day and 
push you on.” In ten minutes, my two official 
appeals were penciled off, and I grasped the 
brave fellow’s hand with gratitude, as he faced 
the blinding snowstorm, and sped away alone, 
down the trail. He had all my cigars and a trusty 
leather jacket, the companion of many a hunting 
foray. 

Feeling the need of discipline, I called the four 


SNOWED IN 


”5 


soldiers aside, and, instructing the Corporal in 
their presence, I gave them the most rigid orders 
about the animals, and the treatment of the In- 
dians, as well as the care of our slender stock of 
food. My evening toilet was made, when my 
boots were drawn off, and I slept the sleep of ex- 
haustion and disgust. I was baffled at every turn, 
and caught on the hither side of Eel River, in per- 
haps the closing storm of the year! 

It seemed to me that I could hear in my uneasy 
dreams, the clatter of tin cups, the rattle of money, 
and the sound of dispute, but I awoke late to find 
the snow nearly three feet thick, and the storm 
still continuing though the wind had gone down. 
I breakfasted, through the attentions of Corporal 
Y eackle, and set myself about inspecting the ani- 
mals, seeing them fed with the last of the grain, 
and sheltered as far as we could devise means. 
The store of provisions was carefully examined, 
T wo days at most, would be the spinning out of 
the slender store. I laid out every possible occu- 
pation for my time, and at last, as the long after- 
noon was closing, I was reduced to poring over a 
battered copy of Shakespeare, the stand-by ” of 
years of travel. I was obliged to decline Captain 
Jim’s application for the loan of one of the soldier’s 
guns. “ Plenty deer stand around in snow, now,” 
he said, “ Got him foot wet.” I diplomatically 
answered “To-morrow!” I knew that Tuttle 
would be back with me, or at least near, for a sin- 
gular lack of cordiality seemed to have grown 


ii6 


SNOWED IN 


up between my body guard and the Indians! 

I carefully inspected my camp, verified the 
safety of the rations and the presence in my room 
of all the weapons, and lay down to sleep that 
night after the longest day of my life. White and 
gray, cold and cheerless, the external scene was 
made more gloomy by night’s black shadows. 

The two groups of my followers were playing 
cards by the firelight when I gave the Corporal 
his last orders. We had heaped up all the dry 
wood near for fuel, and I feared an accidental fire, 
which might cost all our lives. One of the soldiers 
was stationed on guard, but, unarmed, with orders 
to arouse a mate, every two hours for relief. 

In the midnight hours, I was aware that the 
two groups were still playing cards, an amuse- 
ment at which the Indians are the equal of any 
Mississippi River gambler. I did not care to for- 
bid the apparently harmless game, as the men 
were without comfort and had a hard siege before 
them. Suddenly, the heavy bang of a Spring- 
field rifle brought me to my feet, with my re- 
volver in hand ! 

As I sprang out of the little side room, I could 
see the Corporal and the two Irishmen strug- 
gling with Private Brown, who still clung to a 
rifle, from whose muzzle, the smoke was pouring. 
There was not an Indian in the room! The three 
muleteers had crawled out of their comer. 

What is the meaning of all this 1 ” I cried, as 
clapping my revolver to Brown’s head, I bade 


SNOWED IN 


n7 

him give up the gun. ‘‘ It was all an accident/* 
the man grumbled, and looking him squarely in 
the face, I saw that he was undeniably drunk! 
Then, I ordered the Corporal and the other two 
soldiers to tie up the man, which they did most un- 
willingly. I could see that there was something 
hidden from me, but, in ten minutes all was quieted. 
Taking the best of the muleteers, I gave him 
the rifle, and searching the four soldiers for car- 
tridges, gave the civilian orders to shoot any one 
trying to touch the arms or ammunition. And 
then, I sent the other two mule-drivers out to find 
and placate the frightened Indians. They trudged 
about in the storm for ten minutes, and I saw dis- 
aster in their eyes as they returned covered with 
snow. “ The Indians have cut the lariats of all the 
animals and cleared out upon them, riding bare- 
back.” I needed no further blow to dampen my 
spirits. The worst had befallen! 

Alternating with the three mule-drivers, I 
guarded the arms and rations until daylight, keep- 
ing the four soldiers under close arrest. The 
truth leaked out before my morning coffee had 
restored my good humor. An all-round game of 
poker in which the Indians produced the secreted 
liquor, bought at the cross-roads, led to a quarrel 
of sudden violence. Brown, emboldened by 
drink, detected in cheating, snatched up the stakes, 
and, springing to a corner, fired the gun of the 
guard point blank at the Indians in his drunken 
recklessness. And, the poor fellows had cleared 
out, in terror I 


ii8 


SNOWED IN 


None of the soldiers would tell on their mates, 
and I transferred my affections to the mule-driv- 
ers, now by no means glad of the unfaithful escort. 

The long day crawled away, and, no Tuttle! 
No sound of relief, no help. One bright ray of 
hope illumined my winter skies. It had stopped 
snowing. We four men (in good repute) guarded 
the sullen soldiers, and the evening after the flight 
of the Indians passed most gloomily. W e all knew 
they would take their own side trails back to the 
Reservation, where all the animals belonged, save 
the Hoopa mare, which they had scorned to 
steal. She was a bright star of the War Depart- 
ment. Nothing was left of Mr. Lo,” save the 
scattered bones of the deer and a few fragments 
of the carcass lying around their fires in front of 
the open door of the cabin. 

I was sleeping at three o’clock, and dreaming 
of Tuttle’s relief train when a hand on my arm 
wakened me. It was the muleteer on guard, 
“ Big Andy.” 

“ See here. Lieutenant,” he whispered, “ there’s 
a thundering big grizzly, hanging around the 
door. He has found the remains of the deer 1 ” In 
grim silence, we loaded the four heavy Springfield 
rifles, and the Corporal grasped a burning brand 
from the fire. I gave him my revolver, and with 
orders for only two to fire at a time, we crawled to 
the door. The three mule-drivers and myself 
were the gunners, and the men stood ready to hand 
us cartridges. 


SNOWED IN 


II9 

When the burning brand was whirled, the great 
marauder ran away twenty yards and stopped, 
growling and digging up the snow! “Now,” I 
cried, “ Give it to him!” Two one-ounce balls 
tore through him, and, as he turned, with a roar, 
he met a second discharge ! 

In the excitement, we fired alternately till a dozen 
balls had laid him out. But, no one ventured 
near him, till daylight brought us Tuttle and a 
dozen selected men. The sun was shining brightly 
when he rode up. I selected four men and eight 
horses. Before noon, Tuttle and I had crossed the 
Eel River divide and the soldiers were trudging 
homeward. To our inexpressible delight, after 
a descent of fifteen miles, the scow-boat ferry was 
found to be in running order. Even my precious 
instruments were landed on the other side of the 
Eel River without damage, and, leaving two men 
to come on with them, after a night spent in the 
ferry hut, the young frontiersman selected for me 
the best horse, and mounted the next best himself. 
Well provided with supplies in our saddle pouches, 
we rode along through the darkling forest, as one 
who fears the avenger of blood ! The great storm 
had whirled around, and the two days of sunshine 
gave us the time needed to reach the hamlet of 
Cahto. All unmindful of past fatigue, I crawled 
into the body of a Concord coach, about to 
in half an hour. My precious trust was safe i 1 
could rest further on. “ The soldiers and the In 
dians?” said Tuttle, ''Let them settle it amo7igthem-^ 


120 


SNOWED IN 


selves!'' I gayly cried, as I left the loyal fellow 
there on guard, with my gold watch in his hand 
as a parting gift. I received from Tuttle the bear 
skin tanned nicely, six months later, as a memorial 
of being Snowed In.” 


WITH THE CARIBS OFF 
RUATAN ISLAND 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 










WITH THE CARIES OFF 
RUATAN ISLAND. 


There are moments in life when the burden 
of existence becomes unbearable. I appreciated 
this fact on the fifth of June, eighteen hundred 
and ninety, when I rode into Truxillo, Spanish 
Honduras, on the seventeenth day of lonely travel 
returning from a bootless quest for gold and the 
gloomy gorges of the Mangalile River. 

I had looked forward, with a secret triumph, to 
hastening along the sea-beach after emerging from 
the last horrible canyon, and buying my steamer 
ticket for New Orleans, Mobile, or Baltimore. I 
knew that I had thrown away six months, several 
thousands of dollars, and my health, in a fruitless 
chase for fool’s gold. Of the valuable outfit, nothing 
remained but a superb double gun, a Lone Star 
frontier revolver, a few cartridges, and, a very few 
available dollars. Besides, the thieves and 
jaguars — more deadly than the fer de lance or the 
machetes of the “ ladrones ” — there was a grim 
enemy now stalking abroad upon the steaming 
plains of Yoro, the arid logwood wastes of 
Olancho, and the beautiful impenetrable jungles of 


124 WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 

the Colon morasses of the Aguan. It was the 
dreaded Yellow Jack! 

I was busied with watching two scoundrels 
plotting my death, but, I could not ignore the fact 
on awaking, after a night spent in a hut at Jocon, 
that five out of nine women huddled around the 
little hacienda had died in the night of yellow 
fever. 

There was but one precaution for me : to boil 
all the water I drank on the march, and, to follow 
up taking the quinine, of which I had used five 
ounces in four months. 

No happier man ever rode across the plaza 
d’armas of Truxillo than the writer, as he swung 
himself down from the little mule which had 
brought him over seven ranges of mountains, three 
hundred miles out of the wilderness. The clang 
of the cracked bells in the old Catholic church, 
the passing of several squads of brown-skinned 
men and black-draped v/omen following rude biers, 
told me that Yellow Jack had resumed his saffron 
crown of death ! Mine host, Juan Crespo, gazed 
blankly at a six-footer, who weighed one hundred 
and thirty pounds instead of his normal two hun- 
dred and nine. My hair waved freely above the 
crownless felt hat, a pair of old boot-tops protected 
my legs, and a long Russian towel, hung diagonally 
like an army blanket, was swung around my neck as 
an aid in crushing the hundred-winged and thou- 
sand-legged insects. The revolver belt was per- 
haps my identification, for, no Honduranean was 


WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND I25 

burned a redder brown than the New Yorker who 
had faced one hundred and ten in the sun for 
months. 

When Crespo, the Boniface, at last recognized 
his whilom guest, the Americanized Cuban 
laughed. You know what the Mangalile trail is 
now, mi amigo^ I tossed my belt and six-shooter, 
in a corner, delivered over my mule to his keeper, 
and hastened away across the square to the office 
of the New Orleans steamers. There were three 
fruit steamers swinging idly at their buoys on the 
crystal blue flood of Truxillo Bay, where far be- 
low the sponges, coral, and the flower garden of 
the sea could be descried fifty fathoms deep. 

I had a treasured store of a hundred or more 
Central American silver dollars, and, when I 
dashed into the Oteri steamship office, the lazy 
clerk puffed his cigarito, pushed back my bag of 
dollars, and, silently pointed to an official adver- 
tisement. My heart froze within me as I read the 
ominous lines. 


No passenger tickets to the United States of 
America sold until November 1, 1890. 

Yellow fever quarantine exists at all American 
ports. S. Oteri & Co., June i, 1890. 


When I demanded of the clerk what steps I 
should take to get out of the country, he grinned. 
“ PueSy sefiory quien sabe ! You might get over to 
Belize, but, they are dying like sheep over there, 


126 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 

and you would be tied up there till November first. 
Better stay here in Truxillo.’’ I grasped my sack 
of dollars, and, after visiting the offices of the 
Mobile and Baltimore steamers, as well as the 
opposition “ Menchaca ” line, I gave up my quest 
in despair. I had offered a certified draft for five 
hundred dollars, a two hundred dollar gold 
watch, and my sixty -pound sterling London gun for 
a forty-dollar passage to Mobile. In desperation, I 
even offered to be mustered with the ship’s crew, 
so as to leave the flaming fiery fever furnace. But 
all in vain! The keen-eyed Honduranean officials 
were out for “ backsheesh,” and the placing of one 
unauthorized person on the ship’s papers would 
have forfeited both steamer and cargo. The 
American Boards of Health personally mustered 
the ship’s people, and, even the dead, were care- 
fully accounted for. This was a delightful phase 
of Honduranean life, and, late that night, I re- 
volved every plan of escape with Juan Crespo. 

I knew that I never would live to make the four 
weeks overland trip to Amapala on the Pacific, 
but, from Mangalile, in the Campamento moun- 
tains, I could have easily escaped to the West, 
had I known of the blockade. It was impossible 
to reach either Colon or Nicaragua, and the cheer- 
ful intelligence that the British Governor of 
Belize, his bride, secretary and leading officer, 
were all dead within a week, summarily disposed 
of the Belize plan ! 

I wandered around the decayed old town for 


WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 1 27 

several days in a stupor. I was just five days too 
late to leave the land of plantains and picarones. 
My wife was contemplating a return from Europe, 
and important affairs claimed me in New York 
city. The mysterious hidden gold-mine bubble 
had bursted, and, with a shudder, I recalled the 
horror-haunted tropical forest which I had lived 
in for six weeks. One especially devilish race of 
birds seemed to enjoy lingering in the foliage till 
aroused by the mule’s feet, and, then, with an un- 
earthly scream, to glide out, brushing one’s face 
with unclean wings. 

I had heard the Apache yell and the war-cry of 
the Sioux, but, nothing ever shook my nerve as 
much as this devil bird ! The morning and even- 
ing clatter of the jungle had worn my patience to 
a thread, and, in the graceful forest vistas where 
the Espiritu Santo flower bloomed, where every 
wealth of orchid and the gorgeous colored flowers 
of kings tempted the eye, there was only disease, 
miasma, lurking death from venomous reptiles, 
the hungry tigers, and the low-browed assassin. 

Only the telegraph was open for communication, 
for the steamers were to be withdrawn and the 
poor consolation of letters was denied me. It 
roused every drop of my blood to throbbing en- 
ergy when I saw two men of note die on the side- 
walk, having been thrust out by the terrified in- 
mates of a cheap posada. 

Finding one poor, dejected American in the five 
thousand dwellers under Congrehoy Peak, I fur- 


128 WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 




tively conferred with him. He was a forlorn hope, 
watching a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of 
steamboats and dredges thrown away in a vague, 
feeble attempt to open the mighty Aguan’s navi- 
gation for two hundred miles. 

“ There is but one chance, Colonel,” said the 
sad-eyed waif of fortune. The American Consul 
comes over from Ruatan Island, with his sloop 
now and then. There is Utilla, Bonaca, and Rua- 
tan, the Bay Islands. They are sea-swept and 
healthy, and, you may get to Cuba or Jamaica from 
Ruatan. Keep your own counsel ! If Consul 
Burchard comes, just plant yourself aboard, and, 
it may save your life.” It was good advice, and I 
haunted the old barbican of the Spanish fort. I 
gazed out on the glassy blue, beyond Hog Island, 
for the one white sail. The splendid old council 
hall of the Conquistadores, Carib town, the 
prisons, fort, and cuartels, I duly examined, and 
gave no sign of my attempted evasion. 

Whether death scorned me, or I was quinine 
poisoned, I cannot say, but I was awakened one 
morning by my American friend to say that the 
Ruatan sloop was in. Half an hour later, I saw 
my trunk thrown on the deck of the ten-ton sloop 
and I sprang aboard the Dart as boldly as a board- 
ing pirate. A few letters of hitherto useless 
recommendation squared me ” with the some- 
what disgruntled Consul, and, two days later, I 
landed at Coxen’s Hole Harbor, in the fairy Rua- 
tan Island. Ten beef cattle in the hold, a dozen 


WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 1 29 

half-breed women and children, and the Consul’s 
family relegated me to sleeping on deck, firmly 
lashed to the rigging, as we were becalmed a 
whole day on a sea which roasted us like a burn- 
ing glass. 

Jerked beef roasted to a crisp, baked plantains, 
and mud coffee were the creature comforts of the 
Dart, but, I could not criticise my fare as the paci- 
fied Consul scorned any remuneration for the fifty- 
mile trip. 

My heart leaped up at seeing the beautiful, neat 
villages of the three islands settled by Lord St. 
Vincent’s Scotch colonists a hundred years ago. 
Daring boatmen, splendid woodsmen, these half- 
breed covenanters, speaking Spanish with a 
Scotch burr, cling to the kirk and school-house, 
and have the only prosperous Christian homes that 
I have ever seen in the American tropics. Thrift 
and success seem to follow these Castilian “ Saw- 
neys ” ; their fruit plantations are models ; their 
white cottages, with cool, green blinds are palatial, 
compared with the Honduranean adobes. 

And, the men and women seem to be able to 
keep clothes upon their sturdy forms, an impossi- 
ble luxury for the slouchy Dons and Donnas. 

When the Dart glided into the beautiful old land- 
locked pirate harbor of Coxen’s Hole, I scoured 
the pretty village in search of news of a passing 
schooner. There were passing trading brigs, too, 
knocking around the Windward Islands. I deter- 
mined to get out of Honduranean waters, by hook 


130 WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 

or crook, though the three bay islands are really 
under a secret British protectorate from Belize. 

It was at the cuartel of the Honduranean Gen- 
eral in nominal command, that I learned an Ameri- 
can fruit schooner was loading at French Harbor, 
twelve or fifteen miles away. Beautiful Ruatan, 
forty miles long and ten miles broad, is a fair}^ 
island of Monte Cristo. Far up on its purple peaks 
the Martello towers of the old buccaneers still 
overlook the sapphire ocean paradise. 

The fear that the New York bound schooner 
might leave me, caused me to hunt instantly for the 
first two Carib boatmen, who, (for a decent bribe) 
would take me and my trunk, at once, along the 
south shore of Ruatan to French Harbor. A few 
cigars, and a couple of pounds of smoking tobacco, 
were my sole purchases, and the interpreter who 
hired my two Caribs, made all clear to them. 
They had only a bunch of green plantains, a jar 
of water, and some papelitos, as supplies. 

An old cat-boat about twenty feet long was my 
means of conveyance, and the glaring sun and 
tropical rain had opened the decks and rotted half 
the cordage. But, headlong in my hurry, I never 
realized that I trusted myself, unarmed, with two 
men only speaking the Carib jargon, and who eyed 
my golden watch and bag of dollars with consider- 
able curiosity. I had sold both my pistol and 
gun, and, I was both worn and weak ! 

We glided along under a freshening breeze, 
running out of the almost land-locked harbor 


WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND I3I 

where Lafitte often hid his vessels, to feel the full 
sweep of a rising gale. The beautiful Carribean 
is famous for its sudden circular storms which 
have overturned many a stout gunboat and even 
stanch steamers. But, lying spread out in the 
cockpit, I watched the alert Caribs nursing their 
corn-shuck cigarettes, as Ave rounded a point and 
tore along, racing madly away to French Harbor. 
The beautiful plantations glided by, with their man- 
go groves growing down into the water and form- 
ing pretty still lagoons along the sculptured shore. 

Another hour would have made us all safe, but 
the sudden gale increased in its fury, and I felt 
my heart sink as I saw the helmsman toss over a 
double sheet, which was soon reeved on the boom 
of the mainsail. The skies darkened, the storm 
king showered down his wrath upon us, and when 
not busied with bailing, I was tightly holding on 
to the combings to prevent my weakened form 
from being tossed bodily out of the boat ! 

The old catboat sullenly plunged into the 
heavy head seas, and to my dismay, 1 saw that the 
seams were opening. Two calabashes were soon 
at work in bailing, while the tempest grew awful 
in its volume. I was drenched to the skin and 
faint with hunger. My utmost faith in Carib fear- 
lessness was tried as we rounded the last point 
from whence we could see French Harbor, five 
miles away. Alas ! there was no schooner visible, 
and, I failed to understand the jargon of my two 
boatmen. 


132 WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 

I had determined to show no fear on general 
principles,” but, 1 was relieved when the anxious 
crew dropped the mainsail sprit, making the sail 
only half its size, and the one man of all work 
essayed later to double-reef it. 

The rickety old boat was plunging madly along 
when suddenly both the double sheets pulled out 
of the fastenings and the sail flew wildly out, all 
control of the sail being lost. The boat was half 
full of water as the utility man cut the rotten 
ropes holding up the mainsail, and, down it came 
with a run! One more wave shipped, and we 
would all be food for the trailing sharks, as we 
wallowed in the trough of the sea. 

But, my admiral Carib threw the tiller hard up, 
and giving me my orders, sprang to aid his fel- 
low to clear away the wreck. I clung to the stern 
combings blinded with the spray, and gazed rue- 
fully around. The cat-like activity of the two 
Caribs had astonished me, and I gazed in wonder 
as the helmsman steered the boat directly for the 
shore, eight hundred yards away ! There were 
frightful rollers and breakers lashing the shores 
now, and my voice in protest rose above the howl- 
ing of the storm ! 

But, the two Caribs only pointed to the half 
waterlogged boat, already well down at the head, 
and, while one clung to the repaired mainsail * 
sheets, the other’s two bronzed arms held the tiller 
with an iron grip. 

I closed my eyes as we rose on the crest of a 


WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 133 

gigantic wave and trembled a moment on its curl- 
ing foam, then we shot into the unvexed 
smoothness of a mango grove lagoon ! The helms- 
man had taken the boat in through an opening not 
forty feet wide, and my heart’s blood receded with 
the sudden shock of the neck-or-nothing dash ! 

It was approaching sundown, and I ruefully 
gazed upon the green bunch of plantains and the 
jar of water. My zinc-covered trunk had partly 
resisted the floods. I was in a quandary, for the 
storm outside of the natural breakwater of trees 
was even fiercer in its intensity. 

No means of reaching the shore seemed possible. 
I was willing to foot the four miles to French 
Harbor, but, one of the Carib navigators dissuaded 
me from trying to swim ashore. He threw over 
a piece of cassava bread, and the serrated back of 
a huge alligator rose up circling around it, while 
later, a yellow-bellied, basking shark made a futile 
dash at it ! 

My attempts at conversation were all absolute 
failures, and I gnashed my teeth at the idea of the 
only New York bound vessel probably for five 
months, sailing away and leaving me an indignant 
Enoch Arden, upon Ruatan ! It was impossible to 
get the twenty-foot catboat near to the shore. 
The mango groves were dense and impossible of 
passage. Just as the darkness closed down, a 
lantern’s twinkle gleamed out on the road along 
the shore. I hailed in English and Spanish, and 
to my inexpressible joy was answered by a boy 
speaking very good English. 


134 WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 

In ten minutes, I had explained our predicament, 
and, with the promise of a handsome reward, in- 
duced him to go to the nearest house and bring 
out a Carib dugout through a little channel cut 
for the parties of fishermen operating in the la- 
goon. 

I never knew the magic power of money before ! 
A frantic joy reigned in my bosom when I reached 
the strand, and before a wagon was procured, the 
Carib admiral had paddled my trunk ashore, a 
marvel of balancing, in the ten-foot canoe. The 
New York schooner was still at French Harbor, 
and, as I rolled along the road, I realized the 
kindly efforts of my Caribs to tell me that she had 
been warped into the beautiful circular pool where 
the bloodthirsty Lolonois once hid away his free- 
booters. 

The wild storm which had so nearly wrecked 

Csesar and all his fortunes,” had made it impos- 
sible for the beautiful yacht-built fruit schooner, 
Margaretta L. Smithy of Kennebunk, Maine, to 
work out and gain an offing. Tier cargo of 
200,000 cocoanuts, 10,000 pineapples, and 8,000 
bunches of bananas was all on board. 

I had given my two daring Caribs five dollars 
extra, and they contentedly had been paddled out 
to the disabled catboat after grateful adieux. 
Said my young guide: ‘‘With that bunch of 
plantains and jar of water, they will pass a happy 
week in the mango grove. They have a fish-line, 
and, with a fire built in an earthen pot, they will 


WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND I35 

broil their fish. And when I told him what I had 
paid them, he declared they had earned a good 
three months’ wages! 

It was midnight before I stood upon the deck of 
the dainty Yankee sea skimmer, and I had thrown 
all care to the winds, as I helped the youth get my 
trunk out of the boat at French Harbor. A deck- 
hand gruffly informed me that the captain and 
mate were both asleep, and “ not to be disturbed.” 

I took the hint and contemplated the stars for 
some hours that night, as I lay stretched out upon 
an old sail, and wondering over the conspiracy of 
yellow fever, quarantine, and father Neptune’s 
rage, which seemed destined to keep me a house- 
less wanderer, in the deadly domains of Hon- 
duras. 

But, I am all right now I” I cheerfully cried, 
as I sprang up when the crew turned out to wash 
decks at daybreak. 

The burly Captain eyed me with some astonish- 
ment, as he rudely demanded, “ What right had 
you to put your trunk aboard this vessel ? She 
carries no passengers! No, sir! Not for all 
your bag of dollars!” he began. “We may be 
quarantined at New York and lose this whole 
cargo, simply on your account! You come from 
the mainland of Honduras, and, your presence 
on our schooner, would ruin the whole lot of us.” 
No argument would move him ! 

And, although he gave me a good breakfast, the 
blunt sailor would not yield. “I am sorry for 


136 WITH THE CAEIBS OFF RHATAN ISLAND 


you,” he said, at length, doubtfully. See here ! 
There is the cottage of Mr. Armstrong, the man 
who owns both vessel and cargo ! Go up and make 
your play on him ! I hate to leave a Christian 
gentleman to die of yellow jack ! Armstrong’s 
a pretty good sort, too.” 

In an hour, I had gone over the whole subject 
with the middle-aged Scotch planter. ‘‘ The fact 
is, they won’t let you land at New York,” he said. 

Even if I were to take you up there, you are in 
for it! I am sorry.” And, even the pleadings of 
the planter’s gentle-faced wife were of no avail. 

“ I will jump off the schooner on the first tug 
outside of New York Harbor!” I cried, in des- 
peration. 

“ They would only land you at the Barge Office, 
and you would be sent back to the mainland of 
Honduras. You can stay with me as long as you 
wish, — as my guest here ; it won’t cost you a 
cent ! ” he cried. “ But, I dare not risk the 
schooner and cargo ! ” 

I then lost my temper a bit, and, after dilating 
upon the general horrors of the all-round death 
trap, I flatly planked down before the frightened 
shipowner, a personal letter from General 
William Tecumseh Sherman to the President of 
Honduras. If I ever get back to civilization, I 
shall tell General Sherman what a welcome I re- 
ceived down here.” The planter’s eyes were very 
widely open, as he gingerly fingered the kindly 
letter. 


WITH THE CARIES OFF RUATAN ISLAND 137 

‘‘ Did General Sherman write that himself?” he 
timidly demanded. 

“ Every line of it ! ” I said. '' By the way, I have 
another letter from the General here, and I’ll give 
you that one ! ” 

Springing to his feet the planter cried loudly : 
“A friend of General Sherman can have anything 
I’ve got! You just step into the store and pay 
thirty pesos in silver, and, you shall have the best 
the schooner will afford. She sails the moment 
we can get her out of the harbor — for bananas, 
pines, and cocoanuts are perishable things.” I 
thanked God for the enthusiast’s singular change 
of heart. 

1 flew to the trading store of the planter, and 
pouched my paid passage ticket to New York 
City with great glee. The mere scratch of the 
dear old hero’s pen had opened a gate for me 
which no money or urging would unloose ! The 
sun was dancing gayly on the smooth waters as 
our crew kedged and warped the schooner out 
over the bar at French Harbor. It was a fairy- 
land that I left, and a fairy-sea that bore me on, as 
I watched the warm-hearted Armstrong waving 
the Sherman letter in triumph on the little pier. 
The great white sails, a full racing set, went up 
one by one, and then, the graceful runaway danced 
along over the curling waves. All’s well that 
ends well,” I mused, as I stuffed my pipe, and 
gazed back upon the vanishing domains of Don 
Luis Bogran. 


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FfGHTINQ THE TIQER 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 





FIGHTING THE TIGER. 


The expression “ Fighting the Tiger ” is one 
capable of considerable latitude of interpretation. 
In New York City, it may be construed as a pray- 
erful contest of a political nature against the se- 
ductive Tammany Tiger, in general American 
sporting parlance, it often refers to a contest for 
the smiles of fortune over green cloth against the 
illusory chances of beating a well-organized bank- 
ing game. 

In India, it now refers to a judiciously conducted 
society function,” where, with the aid of ele- 
phants, scores of beaters, and the support of many 
cross-fire rifles of heaviest caliber, the aroused 
“ felis tigris,” making a desperate charge out of 
his jungle is dispatched secundum artem,” even 
under the approving eyes of beauty. Fire, bells, 
blowing of horns, and a horrid din, cause the panic- 
stricken animal to steal out at last against pitiable 
odds. Nothing is to be said against the superb 
individual prowess of the officers of the old East 
India Army, but, modern art has changed the con- 
ditions of the contest in Hindostan. 

It is far different with the Chinese, Corean, and 
Siberian haunts of the great feline. In China and 


142 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


Corea, the tiger does pretty much as he pleases — 
traps and poison being the most effectual methods 
of conquering him. 

There awaits the sportsmen of the world the 
most magnificent opening of happy hunting 
grounds ” for the individual ‘‘ fighter,” when the 
Trans-Siberian Railway is finished. 

The tiger roves over the whole Asian world, 
never passing far west of a line drawn from the 
Indus to the Caspian Sea. 

The regions of Amoor, Trans-Baikal, Manchu- 
ria, Primorsk, and Kirin, in Pacific Siberia, and, 
Mongolia and Gobi in Northern China, are infested 
by the most ferocious tigers known to man. 

In the Russian regions, now under a slow politi- 
cal development, the hardy English sportsmen 
will for many years be practically excluded by the 
aversion to granting passports for Englishmen to 
unnecessarily travel in the Czar’s wildest domains. 
Russia and England are fighting a silent duel for 
the political control of the home of the tiger — all 
of Asia — with the chances in favor of the Czar 
dominating China and controlling Asia. 

In no country of the world has Siberia a parallel. 
Its gold, platinum, and gems, its superb forests, its 
mines of coal and the useful metals, its fisheries and 
abundance of game, its agricultural and pomolog- 
ical resources ; all these are wonderful, but, the 
greatest curiosity of its marvelous natural wealth 
is the sweep of the entombed tropical mammoths, 
whose cadavers are even yet preserved by nature’s 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


I4S 

cold Storage process, entombed in the thick- 
ribbed ice ” of the Lena, the Yenesei, and the Obi. 
The fossil ivory there to be quarried will soon be 
the world’s only supply, and the ancient tropical 
fauna, flora, and fossils, may give us new unread 
pages in the history of the human race. 

The tiger alone of all the olden fauna, has clung 
to this mystic region, seldom crossing the silent 
Amoor, but infesting the gloomy forests of the 
southern provinces of Pacific Siberia. 

The vast forests of cedar, oak, ash, beech, elm, 
and walnut are traversed but rarely by little post- 
roads or tracks leading down from the Amoor to 
Vladivostock and the Chinese frontier. 

At every twenty miles, a block house of logs is a 
post station where plenty of rye bread, tea, and the 
hunter’s harvest, furnish food to official travelers. 
Small detachments of soldiers garrison these places 
and protect the post-horses as well as prevent 
wandering convicts from committing depreda- 
tions. 

The woods, apart from the struggling Russian 
settlements, along the coast and the great river, 
are given up to the hardy Manchurians, the lineal 
descendants of Genghis Khan’s warriors. In this 
wild land, where pillars builded to Timur and 
Genghis still crown the lonely heights, the fear- 
less Manchurian hunter reigns supreme. Elk, 
deer, bear, wolves, foxes, and every variety of 
game bird are his means of subsistence, the fur 
animals enabling him to buy his powder, lead, 


144 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


guns, or cartridges. Taciturn, grim, great of 
stature and keen of every human and animal in- 
stinct, the Manchurian hunter is a brave idolater 
and free of all vexatious rules. Braving cold, 
fatigue, and privation, he traverses the pathless 
forest, guided by the stars, and ranges from Lake 
Baikal to the mouth of the Amoor, from the Yel- 
low Sea to Possiette Bay, at the northern line of 
Corea. 

Master of his own knowledge of edible roots 
and bulbs, a great flesh eater, his mechanical arts 
go no farther than making rude knives, bows, and 
lances, and the rough gear for his stray Tartar 
pony. 

To these bold woodsmen is left the task of keep- 
ing the post-roads clear of tigers, the troika team 
attached to the khibitka wagons being plentifully 
hung with bells to startle the lurking tigers. 

Neither Chinese, Corean, nor Japanese have the 
bold and fearless character of these Manchurians, 
who undoubtedly are the progenitors of our pre- 
sent North American Indians — such as the Black- 
feet, Cheyennes, and old Comanches. Vengeance, 
and a sleepless rancor for injury done, stimulate 
them to a mad fury; one of them, some years ago, 
lor an outrage by a petty Russian officer, stole in 
to a blockhouse, slipped away with the sleeping 
men’s stacked arms, and, taking up a post to suit 
him, shot down thirteen out of fourteen of the 
startled Russians, only, the last one living to tell 
the tale. 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


145 


In these gloomy Manchurian forests, lurks a 
tiger whose size and habits are different from the 
Indian feline. Whereas the average Indian tiger 
is good sized when a ten footer, the Siberian tiger 
often measures fifteen to seventeen feet from snout 
to tip of tail. Its hide is fully double the thick- 
ness of the Hindostan tiger’s skin, and it bears a 
thick fur as an undergrowth due to its cold 
habitat, the pelt being a hide, with a fur growth, 
and the beautiful tiger hair coat on the surface. 
The superb skins brought from Corea and China 
are often valueless, however, by reason of strych- 
nine poisoning, which causes the hair to all fall 
out very soon. 

This gigantic animal in Manchuria adopts habits 
at variance with his cousin of the Hindostan jungle. 
The Indian tiger, covered by the tropical vegeta- 
tion, in an over-populated land, swarming with 
animals and human beings, steals upon his easy 
prey, becoming satiated with human flesh, by 
springing out from ambush on the pious Hindoos 
lurking about the water pools for coolness, for 
their religious ablutions, or in search of water to 
fill their jars. The Siberian monster takes his 
post in convenient trees, usually those of inclined 
trunks or favorable growth, and thence, hurls him- 
self headlong upon his prey, usually the three horses 
of the troika or the pony of the traveler. Then, 
if missing his first spring, he boldly follows, leap- 
ing along in mad pursuit. 

A singular penchant for horse flesh has pro- 


146 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


duced some of the strangest episodes of Siberian 
tiger hunting. Some ten years ago a progressive 
Russian gentleman imported a hundred and fifty 
valuable horses from Odessa, via the Suez Canal, 
at an enormous expense. Landed at Vladivo- 
stock, they were transferred to his horse farm not 
five miles from the Golden Gate of the East. 

There, in the very suburbs of a garrison of ten 
thousand, guarded by hardy and well armed at- 
tendants, it was found necessary to build a fifteen 
foot palisade around the beleaguered equines. The 
vast number of giant tigers, attracted by this unfor- 
tunate commercial experiment, created a serious 
loss of human life. The boldest Siberians became 
dismayed, and a full company of regular Russian 
troops, under their officers, and armed with heavy 
Berdan military rifles and double revolvers, were 
sent to fight the invaders. The scent of the im- 
prisoned animals maddened the tigers, and the 
roads were practically blockaded. For several 
months, the unequal contest went on. Dozens of 
tigers v/ere killed by volley firing, until the 
nervous strain became unbearable, and the troops 
flatly refused to keep their post ! 

A handsome carriage span from the survivors 
was presented to the Governor, and the last six or 
seven of the beautiful Ukraine breeding animals 
were, one by one, killed and eaten by the beasts at 
a little summer resort not a mile from the Govern- 
ing Admiral’s palace ! One of the last of the car- 
casses served as a bait to a trap made by digging 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


147 


a deep pit. Over this, on a very weak staging-, 
the carcass was left, and the impulsive spring of 
the one unluclcy tiger of that ever victorious army, 
landed him in a fifteen-foot hole, with sides so in- 
clined that he could not claw himself out. A box 
was lowered over the beast, he was starved into 
seeking food in it, and the huge door then closed 
by a strong wire. This particular animal made 
thousands of roubles for his captors, for he was 
taken overland to St. Petersburg, exhibited, and, 
finally deposited, there, in the Zoological Gardens. 

During a visit of mine to Siberia in 1885, a 
dramatic incident occurred in a grand hunt given 
by a Russian General, near Possiette Bay. Two 
hundred soldiers with double belts of cartridges 
and their seven-shooter rifles of enormous caliber, 
were marshaled as a line of beaters, a yard apart, 
to drive the game down a long, narrow neck about 
fifteen miles long. 

The general and his guests, well mounted, 
awaited the coming of the heavier game, at the 
most advantageous firing line, the beaters having 
orders to cease firing on arriving in the vicinity. 
The sport was going bravely on, elk, bear, deer, 
and wolves were falling right and left, when with 
a roar, a gigantic tiger made a dash for the General, 
and, disdaining a volley from the hardy foot soL 
diers posted near him, dragged down both horse 
and General. 

The faithful soldiers of the Czar closed in, and 
the result of the mek^e, was a dead charger, his 


148 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


throat torn open with a single sweep of the claws, 
a badly wounded General, and four dead soldiers, 
two of whom, were killed by the frantic animal, 
and two, accidentally shot in the wild firing at 
short range, to save the Commander’s life. 

It was in early October, ’85, that a young Man- 
churian lad of eighteen, left Vladivostock for a 
week’s elk and deer hunt in the great forest sweep- 
ing to the Ussuri River. The hunter’s companion 
was a stocky built young Russian hunter, Ivan 
Ortich, about twenty-three years of age, and they 
had been, for a couple of years, companions in the 
chase. The deer and elk sold well in the bazar 
market at Vladivostock, the skins and pelts of 
smaller animals gave them a good revenue, and 
they had, following the needs of their trade, ob- 
tained a good battery from the ample stores of the 
German traders. 

Ivan had a good Winchester Express rifle. 
Agar, the young Manchurian, a seven-shooting 
Hotchkiss rifle, and, each bore the heavy Smith 
& Wesson eight-inch army revolver slung over 
their necks by a diagonal double leather thong, 

A heavy hunting knife and a hatchet were hung 
from their belts by a light chain, and under their 
felt-lined leather jackets were their doubled cart- 
ridge belts. 

They took with them but one pony with their 
slender supplies, it being their custom to hang up 
the deer and elk on a staging of poles, after dis- 
emboweling the game, and in case of luck, while 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


149 


one waited on watch, with a welLkept-up fire, to 
frighten the wild beasts, the other would return 
for three or four ponies, or a heavy road sled to 
drag home the game. 

On this particular occasion, the hunters’ luck 
had been exceptional. A band of splendid elk, 
seven in number, had been rounded up and fallen 
before the unerring rifles of the friends. And, 
five fat deer were also hung up by their heels on 
forked branches, lopped off five feet above the 
ground. In the crisp, cool, October nights, the 
game would cool and harden and be in prime 
market condition at any time during a week. The 
absence of moisture in the air and flies, made it an 
easy matter to keep properly bled and dressed 
game, in a land where salmon piled up like cord 
wood, keep outside the huts all winter, one of 
these frozen fish breaking like a stone when 
struck, and where frozen milk in four-foot slabs 
might serve as policemen’s clubs. 

Agar was light at heart as he left his friend to 
tend their girdle of fire, and mounted their only 
pony to ride into Vladivostock for two ox sleds 
to drag home the game, and he joyfully scented 
a fifty rouble profit in the game alone, besides the 
great value of the skin of a superb black fox which 
he carried rolled up behind his rude saddle. 

Ivan was well provided with fagots to feed his 
fire; he was thoroughly armed, and his tea-pot 
simmered gayly on the little camp fire, while his 
pouch of wild Chinese tobacco had been refilled 
by his comrade. 


fighting the tiger 


It was in the dusk of the next evening that Agar 
led on his two Corean peasants, each guiding a 
rough road sled drawn by trained Corean oxen, 
and neared the scene of their camp. He had been 
so elated with their unusual success that he had 
failed to locate the camp correctly, and he bade 
his two followers await at the nearest recognized 
point on the main road, while he sought a prac- 
ticable way through the gloomy forest shades to 
where his friend was awaiting him. 

At last, he recognized the clump of heavy cedars 
around whose bases the game had been hung up, 
and he could see the faint, blue smoldering smoke 
of a dying fire. He whooped gayly as he trotted 
his pony forward, but, there was no answering 
response ! He was surprised, and his voice only 
echoed back in a lonely wail from the woods. He 
drew up his pony. There were always bad men. 
Perhaps some wild Manchurians had overpowered 
Ivan and taken away the valuable game ! Some- 
thing had happened ! 

With true Manchurian cunning, he leaped off, 
tied his pony, and then, circling around the camp 
at a distance of a hundred yards, stole cautiously 
toward it, his heavy Hotchkiss rifle charged and the 
magazine turned on. Did he see something mov- 
ing? He was within fifty yards now. He tried to 
call out, but his voice died away. Already he was 
in sight of the forms of the elk lying piled on the 
rude platform, and the smaller deer hanging from 
the branches. Keeping trees in line ahead of him, 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


he stole forward with his finger on the trigger of 
his rifle. The circle of fire had all smoldered 
away, and there was no sign of any movement. 
Had Ivan Ortich become sick and wandered away ? 
He strode boldly across the ring of ashes to see 
something lying there prone which at once his 
heart told him was his dead friend. 

Before he could cry out Ivan,” a huge black 
and yellow moving object swung down before him 
and planted its paws on the body of the prostrate 
hunter! 

With a nervous energy, born of desperation. 
Agar fired thrice point-blank into the breast of the 
huge monster, and was rolled over by the dying 
charge of the desperate brute! His Hotchkiss 
rifle was knocked out of his hand, and fell several 
feet away from him. 

Tigers ! ” he blankly murmured, as he struggled 
to his feet, and then, with a yell, the giant mate of 
the dead animal leaped down upon him from a 
long, low tree trunk. The beast’s teeth closed in 
his left shoulder and crushed the bones of his arms 
like pipe stems. 

The heavy leather jacket, with its thick, red, 
felt lining, alone prevented the beast tearing out 
the arm. And the monster feline, shaking him 
like a rat, then began to drag him away toward 
the thick underbrush. His face was turned down- 
ward, and at every few pulls, the great cat would 
loosen her hold and strike him across the back 
with her claws! 


152 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


It dawned upon him that the second tiger was 
infuriated by the loss of its mate, and, his legs 
catching in some oak scrub, he caught hold of his 
revolver chain. There was but one instinct now, 
relief from the yellow-eyed, fire-fanged brute whose 
hot breath sickened him ! He cocked the Smith 
& Wesson revolver with his right and fired directly 
into the tiger’s mouth as it clenched its teeth 
again and again in the poor lad’s shoulder. With 
a snort, the animal threw back its head, and as he 
lay, ready, dashed on him again, grasping his arm 
lower down. He now fired his pistol into the 
brute’s ear ! With a fearful growl, it closed its teeth 
into the lower arm and began to paw the ground ! 
He had regained his consciousness, and then, 
thrust the weapon into the tiger’s mouth, firing 
full down its throat ! 

And then, everything seemed to swim around 
him, he fainted away, and was only revived by the 
pain of the Coreans trying to lift him, when they 
had wandered around and at last, stumbled upon 
the camp. 

The cold of the chill evening had stopped his 
bleeding somewhat, and the frightened peasants 
had found him with one huge tiger lying dead 
across his half-devoured friend, and the dauntless 
Manchurian boy was lying, literally, in the em- 
brace of the enormous beast, with which he had 
battled to the death. 

The shoulder joint was badly lacerated, but the 
natives knew enough to twist a hide thong around 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


153 


his arm to stop the bleeding artery. Leaving all 
else there, they carried him to his pony and one of 
them caught up poor Ivan’s Winchester and a belt 
of cartridges. They made their way to the main 
road, and, by a rare chance met the mail Khibitka 
with a brave officer as passenger. 

In half an hour, Agar, buried in furs, was be- 
ing trundled along to Vladivostock. 

The gallant officer, with the two Coreans. re- 
turned to the scene of the fight. The story told 
itself! Poor Ivan had probably been surprised at 
his supper, and had no time to fire a shot. He 
had been killed the night before, and the two 
tigers had torn him to death and then feasted upon 
the choicest portions of the hard-fought game. 
Captain Platoff loaded up the whole of the mute 
witnesses of the hunters’ skill and the battle to the 
death, and escorted the two sleds to the main road 
where a party of Cossacks soon arrived from town 
with help. 

The amputation of Agar’s arm made him in 
time, almost as good as new, and gave him rank 
far and near, as a local hero. 

In time, he was able to tell the main details of his 
thrilling adventure, and he strangely profited by the 
duel to the death. In the splendid Russian mili- 
tary hospital, he soon recovered, and the two huge 
tigers were carefully skinned, as proofs of the boy’s 
heroism. 

Their skins were cured, were sewed together, 
and quite neatly stuffed with straw and moss, to 


154 


FIGHTING THE TIGER 


reproduce their exact physical dimensions. In a 
wareroom of Kunst and Albers, the great German 
tradinghouse, I saw these huge monsters, and, one, 
which laid along the side of a twenty foot room, 
left only one foot between his tail and the end of 
the room. They were seventeen and nineteen 
feet long respectively, and it was the female, the 
seventeen-footer, which had tried to drag Agar 
away to make a quiet meal of him. 

The boy was made a mail carrier guard, and 
furnished with an artificial arm. He always stated 
that in his handling the revolver, he was, at first, 
actuated by mere retributive instinct, but that 
after the first shot, his wits somewhat returned, 
and he felt a fierce desire to finish his enemy by 
trying to find a vulnerable place. I tried once 
to shoot into her eye,” he said, “but she was look- 
ing at me, and she twisted her head away, and 
shook me like a rat ! ” . . . His last remark, 

always was, as he pocketed a few roubles, “ / 
do not want to fight any more tigers ^ 


A HUNT IN COREA 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 









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A HUNT IN COREA. 


It was in October, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
five, that I found myself coasting along the forbid- 
den-looking shores of Eastern Corea, en route for 
Vladivostock, Siberia, and the Amoor River. 
There are dreams in life destined never to be real- 
ized, usually the rosy-tinged clouds of youthful 
anticipations, but a singular life itinerary is often 
brought about by trifling switches from the beaten 
path. Japan, China, Siberia, and Corea were terra 
incognita to my wildest dreams of world-wandering, 
and yet, in two years, I visited them all twice 
under the fluctuating, quivering compass card of 
commercial speculation. 

In leaving beautiful Nagasaki, on a splendid steel 
Clyde- built steamer sailing under an unpronounce- 
able name, under the Japanese flag, we were not 
especially persona grata in the “ Land of the Morn- 
ing Calm.” The people of Cho Sen ” still re- 
member the descent of Hideyoshi in fifteen-ninety- 
seven, when the two hundred thousand matchless 
Japanese swordsmen swept from Fusan to Pin 
Yang, in one glorious campaign. 

Our steamer was one of the largest in the great 
Japanese mercantile fleet, the ‘‘Hiogo Maru, ” or 


A HUNT IN COREA 


^ 5 ^ 

“Hiogo Sea Goer,” and my wife and I, had the whole 
magnificent cabin to ourselves. There was only 
one sturdy Chinese stewardess on board, a comely 
big-foot woman, fit to be a bride for “ Tom Bowl- 
ing.” The engine-room and wardroom were filled 
with three or four canny Scotsmen, the steam 
engineers, who never left their cosy haunts, save 
for the room where they directed the workings of 
their beautiful marine mechanism, as gracefully 
finished as jewelry. 

The Captain was the only other white person in 
the splendid crew of a hundred and fifty, and a 
splendid specimen of the north country Scot. He 
kept up a naval discipline on the boat, and, royally 
entertained his only two first-class passengers. 
Andrew Meeker was as fine a fellow as ever sang 
“Scots wha hae,” or sat around the smoking 
“ haggis.” Fifteen years in the Japanese service 
had made him a perfect linguist among the won- 
derfully acute race whom foolish tourists designate 
as the “ little brown men.” 

His cruise extended for nine months of .the year, 
from Nagasaki, across the straits of Corea, to 
Fusan and Gensan, along the whole coast of Corea, 
to Russian Siberia, Saghalien, and the mouth of 
the Amoor River. In the three months when 
Vladivostock Harbor was closed by ice, his beau- 
tiful vessel was used on shorter cruises by the 
Mitsu-Bishi Steamship Company. 

Captain Meeker opened both his heart and his 
larder to us, and my wife and 1 had the 


A HUNT IN COREA 


159 


largest liberty, with twenty superb staterooms to 
roam around at will. A magnificent steel-bronze 
colored Siberian blood-hound was given some 
mysterious password for us; a superb tailless 
Corean cat was also introduced, whose rolling 
growl was like the thunder of war drums afar, and 
whose rich red and black-spotted fur was a de- 
lightful color symphony. 

The king of all golden macaws was the third 
cabin pet, and, I can never forget the day when 
macaw, reformed tiger cat, and Siberian blood- 
hound all wound up in my wife’s stateroom in a 
wild tangle of barks, yells, and screams, with 
bronze, yellow and gold, black and red, all mixed 
in a fighting phantasmagoria. 

As we sailed out of the exquisite Nagasaki Har- 
bor, under the white flag with its red ball, past the 
grim red forts, with the heavy Krupp barkers, 
ready for Russian or Chinese, we took with us in 
our ship’s company of a hundred deck passengers, 
a four-thousand-ton cargo, and a crew of a hun- 
dred and fifty, the germs of that ghastly and silent 
scourge — the cholera ! 

But, we were merry withal, as we swept along 
over perfumed seas, passing myriad little twin- 
kling lights of fisher boats at night, and dashing 
on beyond storied and castled Tchusima, to dart in 
and make a first Corean landing at Gensan. We 
had spent a delightful month in Japan, among the 
polite and courtly children of the old “ Samauris,” 
and I was eager to try my extensive hunting bat- 


l6o A HUNT IN COREA 

tery upon the game of Corea and Siberia. I was 
furnished forth h la Gordon Gumming. 

When we had experienced the delights of being 
hove to for twelve hours in a howling typhoon, 1 
realized the hardy nerve of the Japanese coasters. 
Their frail-looking, high-built junks, with the sea 
sweeping apparently clear through the stern, were 
seen drifting with sea anchors, while whole fami- 
lies gathered around the rice pot and fish kettles, 
bidding defiance to rude Boreas. 

When I awoke and peered out of the great 
cabin ports in the beautiful circular harbor of 
Fusan, I started in horror! Though a splendid 
temple and some pretty tree-embowered cottages 
shone out on Japanese point, where the old in- 
vaders still keep a foothold, the low, thatched 
roofed mud hovels of the Corean town were most 
filthy and repulsive. Around us rose bare, bleak 
hills, like an amphitheater, and they were covered 
with some thousands of white, ghost-like looking 
beings, scattered in groups of fifty or a hundred 
on the rocky knolls. 

It looked as if generations of the dead had risen 
as dread ghosts, startled by the scream of the 
steam whistle of the Hiogo Maru. To rush out, 
clad only in kimono and pyjamas, and seize the 
Captain’s glasses was my first action. 

Meeker gayly laughed, There, Sir, is half the 
population of Fusan, and they will sit there all 
day and watch us till we are hull down. For 
filthy, cantankerous, idle, noisy, quarrelsome chat- 


A HUNT IN COREA 


l6l 

terers, cowardly and vicious, the Coreans cannot 
be matched in the whole world ! ” 

When a dozen lighters came alongside, with a 
hundred or more of the natives, in their loose 
cotton-padded white jackets, and baggy trousers, 
of the same color, I understood the graveyard 
spooks who crowded the bare hills. The 
tufted hair, clinched in a knot on their bare 
heads, surmounted frankly coarse and sensual 
faces. The din and chatter and yells were soon 
deafening around us. A duplicate board of 
Corean and Japanese quarantine doctors came 
off in an official boat and gravely forbade us 
landing. Our “ cholera ” taint had been whis- 
pered, and myself and wife were duly sprinkled 
with perfume from an atomizer, and forbidden to 
land. While we discharged our Fusan cargo, I 
watched the native boats bringing us a dozen 
huge cylindrical fishes, some twelve to fifteen feet 
long, and as round as a mainmast. Sections of 
these, sawed off with a saber, were stood upright 
like drums of solid red meat cased in glistening 
silver. 

On the quarter-deck that evening, with my wife, 
I watched the lights of the forbidden town, and 
was not sorry when we steamed out and ran along 
the great gray-jagged Tiger mountains, stretching 
far away to join the Kendeh-a-lin range of Man- 
churia. Bare, gloomy, treeless, cold and bleak, 
their gray volcanic buttresses towered ten thousand 
feet in the air. 


t62 


A HUNT IN COREA 


Groups of ugly, rocky islands lay along the 
coast, and a fearful gale blew off shore for three 
days. We lay to, to endeavor to rescue three 
Coreans who were blown fifty miles out to sea, in 
an open skiff some thirty feet long. With an out- 
rigger and a quaint matting sail, steering with an 
oar, they had a sort .of drag out, and absolutely 
refused to leave their frail craft ! Captain Meeker 
offered to hoist their whole rig on deck, but they 
defiantly refused to be aided. We tossed them a 
bag of bread and a keg of water, and left them to 
the mercy of the God of storms. 

Only here and there, could little clearings be 
seen on tho hills, where a little scratched-in rice 
seemed to be cultivated, the only goods available 
at Fusan being hides and salted fish. There was 
no sign of timber, and the breaking waves dashed 
high on sharp-fanged cliffs sixty and eighty feet 
high. A cheerless and a stormy coast ! Nearing 
Cape Duroch, we saw all the grinding wreckage 
of a Japanese c/uiser churning among the breakers 
where five hundred brave men had perished. The 
desire to oblige the few beach-combing Coreans, 
and to test the power of a heavy double English 
rifle, led me to '‘open fire” on a fifty-foot whale 
who paddled audaciously near to us. The fifth 
Boxer cartridge, .577 caliber (specially loaded), 
finished the largest animal which ever fell to my 
bag, and only the insurance clause prevented 
Meeker from towing him into Gensan. But the 
Coreans who found him, when he drifted ashore, 
were greatly profited. 


A HUNT IN COREA 


163 


A long wooded sandy spit, veiling the mouth of 
a small river, broke upon our view as we steamed 
into Gensan, the only Corean port, next to Pos- 
siette Bay, the Russian border town of Pacific 
Siberia. Three or four hundred flat-roofed mud 
hovels were strung along the beach, and a valley 
opening into a cleft in the enormous mountains 
twenty miles away showed some signs of cultiva- 
tion. There was to be seen on the beach two 
neatly built European wooden houses, a half mile 
north of the Corean town. They had been sent out 
from England, already jointed up, in ships, to be 
used by the families of two English officials in 
some strange way forming the customs staff there. 

A three days’ stay, while unloading a good half 
of our cargo, allowed the exiled ladies the privi- 
lege of an unexpected visit from a womanly sister 
fresh from the gay circles of Petersburg, Paris, 
and London. 

The excellent corps of Japanese officers took 
charge of the ship while Andrew Meeker prepared 
to pffot me into the interior, a score of miles or so, 
on a hunting trip. Our departure was toLe kept 
a secret from the Corean authorities, who objected 
to allowing foreigners to enter their houses, roam 
over their fields, or penetrate the interior. 

Our little social circle had, in a body, roamed 
over the repulsive town of Gensan under guard 
of several Corean officials, one of whom in yellow 
mourning robes was doomed to be mute for a 
year as a further mark of mourning, transacting 


164 


A HUNT IN COREA 


all his business by finger signs, seemingly well 
understood. 

The men, with babies slung in pouches on their 
backs, seemed to loaf idly in the street, only busied 
in smoking the vilest native tobacco in long 
straight pipes, which seemed to be wind defy- 

ing- 

The women darted into their squalid hovels on 
our approach, their baggy trousers in no way dis- 
tinguishing them from the men. I have seen the 
hovels of all the indigenes of the world, but the 
Corean hut for filth is the most repulsive. An 
alarming scarcity of fuel leads to the use of dried 
cow manure as fuel, the mud floors being per- 
forated with flues built under them. 

To disguise our purpose of visiting the interior. 
Captain Meeker had his smart gig crew row us 
into the mouth of the little river above the town 
before daylight, and furnished with provisions, 
bade the crew work well up the river at dark and 
pick us up at a bend some eight miles above Gen- 
san. 

There was a famous old temple to be visited 
and a view of the interior western valley, which 
stretches facing the Yellow Sea from Mauchang 
to the Silver Plateau. Meeker had never peeped 
through the defile of the Pwanlung Shan range. 
The hardy Scot had his fowling-piece, 12-gaugej 
and a good revolver, with store of cartridges, fine 
and coarse, and twenty rounds of pistol ammuni- 
tion. I had my rifle and fowling-piece combined, 


A HUNT IN COREA 


165 

with fifty rounds of mixed ball, buck and shot 
cartridges, my revolver, knife, and twenty pistol 
rounds. A good haversack of lunch and two can- 
teens made up our backloads, and we were rigged 
out in hunter’s canvas suits and high boots. 

After our boatmen left us, we struck out from 
the river and passed a brook on a beautiful old- 
pointed arch stone bridge, evidently dating back 
to the days of Kishi. There were numbers of 
gray stone tablets handsomely engraved with old 
obsolete characters, mounted on blocks three or 
four feet square. These related the virtues of 
dead men of note, or bore old laws or public in- 
scriptions. The daylight came blushing over thesea. 

We had passed abundant flocks of geese, 
cranes, flamingoes and wild ducks in the marshes, 
with plovers and snipe galore, but, we decided 
not to fire for fear of alarming the morose dwell- 
ers in the valley. 

We made careful detours and avoided troops of 
chattering men and women, mounted straddle on 
tame oxen, going into Gensan. Lines of women 
bearing scanty marketing on a frame of sticks 
lashed to their backs, plodded along, the men 
wandering idly after them, smoking the eighteen- 
inch pipe, and “ toting ” the babies on their backs, 
but, strangely enough, bearing no other burdens ! 
The little fields of rice were triangular plateaus 
arranged so as to drain the one into the other, 
with rude rough-stone partitions, and the mud- 
walled, thatched-roof hovels were surrounded by 


i66 


A HUNT IN COREA 


composts of trodden manure. Not a wheeled 
vehicle was to be seen, and the road into the de- 
file, soon became only an ox-path, then a trail, and 
finally a stony path. We passed scattered grave- 
yards, all telling of a dense population in the old 
days of Chinese and Japanese suzerainty. 

In four or five hours, we had crowned the defile 
and could see the whole valley spread out below, 
the black, dirty town huddled on the wharfless 
beach, the two custom-houses, the graceful steel 
Hiogo Maru, with clouds of barges around her, 
and the fishing boats spread out fan-like over the 
open roadstead. 

We had been geologizing, botanizing, and won- 
dering at the stern struggle for life in the bleak 
and unfriendly countryside, and, pipe in mouth, 
jogged along unmindful perhaps of frightened vil- 
lagers running along in a gathering cloud around 
us, but, so far, as skillfully concealed as Apache 
scouts. It was afternoon when we saw the gray 
domes of the long-looked-for temple shining out 
in the glen, whence a gurgling brook ran down to 
grow into a river and flow into the Yellow sea. 

The temple, which we examined carefully, was 
empty and deserted. Its gods were dead. Its 
priests were fled. It had spacious halls and mas- 
sive columned porticoes. Four rounded domes, 
with flat lintel openings and several pointed 
arches, with many rounded columns and flights of 
steps all carved of hard gray basaltic stone, were 
left, with a score of upright tablets with deeply 


A HUNT IN COREA 1 67 

engraved characters, to tell of a vanished past. It 
was a magnificent relic of better days. 

There was no song of birds, no cheerful smoke 
of happy homes, nothing to indicate life or pros- 
perity. Only these relics of a dead worship, which 
seemed gigantic in a land not now possessed of any 
of the mechanical powers. It would be impossible 
for the degraded Coreans of to-day, to erect even a 
single porch of the temple of the vanished gods. 

“ And this, is the richest valley of the Ham-ki- 
ang,” said Captain Meeker ; “ a little rice, millet and 
beans, a few mangy oxen, half-starved chickens, 
and razor-backed pigs. Barbarous isolation has 
caused these people to forget the glorious time 
when their Corean tongue was the parent of the 
graceful and impassioned Japanese. The Mongol, 
the Tartar, the Chinese, the Japanese, have all 
ruled here as conquerors, and the fabled wealth of 
the land is a myth. No one knows if there are 
five or twenty millions of people in the wretched 
peninsula, and Tokingen, near here, and Katsuma 
are fallen to decay. A few bronze bowls, a few 
pipes, a little native cotton and tobacco, seem all 
the valuable products, save hemp, fish, and hides. 
The barbarous policy of excluding foreigners has 
kept these people in conflict with the Japanese, 
French, and Americans. They have bred in and 
in, and so lost language, arts, and religion. Neither 
roads nor bridges are available, as a rule, the 
Government is a myth, and a ferocious hatred of 
Christianity exists.” 


i68 


A hunt in COREA 


'' What will become of Corea ? ” I asked, as we 
finished our lunch and prepared to hunt back on 
the northern side of the valley. A great storm 
seemed to hover over the northwest mountains, 
and the air was raw and chill. 

‘‘Russia, the great national grab-all, will take 
the peninsula some day, when her secret friendship 
with China is cemented by the Trans-Siberian 
railway. Russia seems to be the universal heir 
of all the dead kingdoms in the East.” 

We struck out boldly across the great valley, 
and soon came in sight of a few dirty huts. 

“ Rain, varied with snow and sleet, makes this 
Eastern land desolate,” remarked the Captain. 
“ There are dense woods in the interior, but no 
roads to provide these people with fuel, and the coal, 
gold, silver, lead, and copper will be reaped by the 
hardy Muscovite later. Here is a land with a dark 
blank of a thousand years’ drift backward to bar- 
barism ! Chinese, Tartar, Japanese, and Mongol 
have scourged Corea till its human wheat has been 
threshed out and only the chaff remains. The 
women are destitute of every art, the priests beat 
upon tomtoms to exorcise the devil of sickness, 
and a frank and besotted immorality governs the 
rude communities. I know of no hope for Corea 
but the red ploughshare of the conqueror.” 

Skirting the bare hillocks, hurrying along to the 
northern side of the watercourse, I began to watch 
for game, tired of the cheerless natural prospects. 
It was as wild as the moors of Kerguelen land. 


A HUNT IN COREA 


169 


and I wondered if any of the huge felines of the 
Tiger mountain were hovering in the lonely 
gullies. 

Suddenly, I caught sight of a broken-down 
shrine, and far below on the growing stream, a sort 
of rude mill with stacks of rice paddy. We cir- 
cled away to avoid the rude villagers and to rouse 
up some stray game. 

“ There’s a splendid black fox,” whispered 
Meeker ; “ shoot him with your rifle barrel ! ” I 
drew a bead as the beautiful animal turned his 
head toward us. The rifle rang out and the ani- 
mal rolled over dead, but, the most unearthly 
screams rose up from the vicinity of the dead 
animal ! 

“ That skin is worth a good hundred dollars,” 
cried Meeker, as we ran forward to observe the 
cause of all the outcry. 

Alas ! for our peace of mind ! There was a hud- 
dled Corean village in a glen near by, and from it 
was now issuing a mob of yelling fanatics. An old 
crone was wildly urging them on. The rifle shot 
had evidently frightened her into hysterics. 

But, the harm was done. The foreigners had 
been seen and recognized ! W e were fifteen miles 
from the shore and a good five miles from the bend 
where the boat with its dozen sturdy sailors 
awaited us at the big bend of the river. The first 
pattering drops of rain were falling as Meeker 
cried, “ Follow me quickly and quietly. They 
will stone us to death if they catch us ! ” 


A HUNT IN COREA 


170 

And, with the Scotsman in the lead, we com- 
menced an energetic retreat trying to double and 
elude our pursuers. 1 had heard of the genial 
pleasures of the Coreans, who often, from sheer 
ennui, form in two clans and stone each other until 
the ground is covered with senseless victims. 

The sharp missiles began to fall unreasonably 
close to us, and the yelling mob increased as we 
dashed along past several other hamlets. 1 could 
see that Meeker was studying the topography of 
the valley. 

“We must not get into the rice fields and be 
bogged down ! ” he cried. “ Don’t you fire. Leave 
that to me and keep the pistols to the last ! ” 

There was no mistaking the determination of 
the rude mob to punish us ^ I'outrance, Then the 
showers of stones became thicker, the yells fiercer, 
and we began to lose breath. 

It was in a pouring rain that the Scotch Captain 
at last turned and fired one barrel of his fowling- 
piece just over the heads of the nearest pursuers. 

We gained five hundred yards before they took 
courage to come on again, but the gathering mob 
resolutely set out across the valley to cut us off, 
realizing that to return to Gensan we must cross 
the one stone bridge over the river which was 
practicable to lead us into town. 

The canny Scot saw the plot. “ They have no 
firearms,” he said. “ They evidently want to 
raise a mob and blockade that bridge so that we 
will be stopped there and killed with clubs or 


A HUNT IN COREA 


171 

stones in the night, when we cannot see to shoot. 
I will fool them ! ” 

And as the sullen rain fell cheerlessly and the 
evening shadows begun to lower, we marched de- 
fiantly along down the valley in the general 
direction of the gray stone bridge whose pointed 
arch we could see gleaming out a couple of miles 
away. The gathering cloud of our pursuers grew 
denser, and while the main body marched along 
to bar our way at the bridge, our only seeming 
means of escape, a dozen fellows struck out quar- 
tering toward us, and I could see the gleam of 
bush-cutters or bill-hooks on their shoulders. 

It was now, indeed, a hunt in Corea ! We were 
the hunted fugitives, and I noted that this flying 
wedge seemed determined to bar our way by ad- 
vancing diagonally across our downward path. 

Captain Meeker’s brow was stern as he held his 
No. 12 gauge gun down, the cold rain dripping 
from its barrels. But one chance remained to us 
to avoid slaughtering a few of the maddened fools. 
“ This will Cost me my position and the steamer 
company may be forbidden to land,” growled 
Meeker. “ We must not kill any of these fellows, 
at least, not till we get near to our boat. As soon 
as we get past this mill, we can see the bend, and 
if the fields are clear, we can fool them. They 
will keep inside of us, and we can make a last run 
to the boat. They will never know who we are, if 
we can slip down stream.” 

The pioneer guard of the chattering and vin* 


172 


A HUNT IN COREA 


dlctive crew had worked so near to me that I 
feared the use of the Manchurian bow and arrow. 
And, men who can shoot through a tiger could 
easily spit me on their four-foot copper-pointed 
shafts. 

Having had some practice in creasing hares on 
the Texas frontier, I carefully sent a .577 Boxer 
ball whizzing about six inches over the heads of 
the bill-hook carriers. I was careful to see that 
there were no more old women in range. The 
whole band dropped on their bellies and we moved 
on, laughing in spite of our danger. 

We had a clear quarter of a mile to ourselves 
when we approached the mill. 

“ I’m going to rest for a few minutes, anyway ! ” 
resolutely cried Meeker, “ and, from that knoll 
near this rice mill, I can lay out a clear course to 
the boat.” 

We had so timed our return so as to have a 
chance to fill the boat with the magnificent water 
fov/1 swarming in the narrow river. 

“ It’s not over a mile and a half over there,” 
said Meeker, “ and, when we get near, if I fire 
three shots in rapid succession, my men will come 
to the rescue. They all have a revolver and a 
short Japanese sword. There are ten and the 
coxswain and we can then, whip the whole town 
of Gensan. Let us put a bold face on it! If there 
is any one in the rice mill, who speaks Japanese, I 
am all right.” 

We strode up to the rude building near the 


A HUNT IN COREA 


173 


little river, and Meeker pushed open the door. 
Our disheveled appearance, the guns in our 
hands, and the suddenness of our entry caused 
half a dozen half-naked Corean women who were 
sacking up rice, to leap into the mill stream and 
disappear in the hollows of the river bank beyond. 
Two men fled away, and gathering up clubs stood 
on the defensive. 

In the ten minutes during which I stood on 
guard, I saw the uncouth trip hammer still pound- 
ing away at the rice paddy. A huge log, evi- 
dently a drift log from the north, had been squared 
at one end and banded into a huge hammer head. 
Poised at its middle, the other end of the log was 
hollowed into a huge spoon ; the water from the 
rude mill race filling this, raised the hammer end 
till the water fell out, and then, the machine 
dropped with a bang. With about three blows a 
minute, this machine was pounding out the rice 
from the sheaves thrust under the hammer by the 
nymphs who had fled. There was, perhaps, a 
thousand pounds of rice in the whole mill’s supply 
on hand. 

When Meeker had scrambled down from his 
post of observation we cleaned our muddy boots, 
regirded ourselves, trimmed our loads, and in the 
dying light, struck out boldly for the bend now 
clearly visible. 

The boat is there, thank God ! ” cried the Cap- 
tain. I can see the white flag and the red ball 
in the stem. Now, these fellows may have hidden 


174 


A HUNT IN COREA 


a few marauders in front of us. I have just four 
mustard-seed cartridges that I found in my 
vest pockets. I have used them to knock down 
some pretty plumaged pheasants. You are not to 
shoot ! I will clear the way with these four, if they 
try to stop us. Remember, no real shooting in 
earnest, unless to save our lives, and — then — back 
to back, and fight it out ! ” 

We had lost our patience, and could see the two 
men who had left the rice mill pointing and en- 
couraging on our assailants. With artful skill. 
Meeker led me along the river bank parallel to its 
course as if striking for a bend below the place 
where the boat lay. We were nearly abreast of 
the bend, when a dozen dark figures leaped upon 
us from ambush. The Captain’s fowling piece 
barked twice, and then, repeated the smarting 
dose, while I stood ready to fire with buck and 
ball. Several jagged stones grazed us, but as we 
ran on we could hear the howls of pain as the 
angry wretches slapped their peppered legs. We 
moved swiftly over the sedgy salt grass, and to 
our inexpressible delight, soon saw the boatswain 
leading on eight of our sturdy fellows at a run to 
meet us. It seemed the very happiest moment of 
my life when I tumbled into the stern sheets of 
the ship’s boat ! 

There were none of the pursuers in sight as we 
swept along down the river under the propulsion 
of ten bending oars. The Captain steered us art- 
fully so as to hide us, and, as we passed the bend, 


A HUNT IN COREA 


175 


we could see the white, ghostlike forms of the 
simple Coreans crowding on the bank. A couple 
of torches blazed out behind us for some time, and 
we guarded a judicious silence. There were 
several bottles of warm saki in the boat, and 
covered with a dry boat-cloak, I lay at ease, until 
three hours later, 1 was delivered over to the care 
of the good-humored head Chinese steward of the 
Hiogo Maru. 

The town of Gensan was convulsed for the re- 
mainder of our stay by the stories drifting in from 
up the valley of three fire-breathing devils who had 
attacked the innocent villagers. One of them van- 
ished, turning into a beautiful dead fox at the feet of 
an old woman who had called on the sacred names 
of Buddha, and Tao and Shinto, all in one breath! 
The other two fire breathers ” had spit poison 
fire all over the boldest of their pursuers, and then 
rushed madly into the river, where they disap- 
peared in fiery whirlpools I All this and more was 
reported to the Corean and Japanese officials, and 
I learned the lesson for life of keeping out of the 
clutches of a morose mob of ignoramuses. Our 
bodies were bruised with the sharp stones and, 
chilled and sickened, we had only reaped in sore 
bones and wearied bodies the useless fruits of our 
hunt in Corea, from which we came out bootless. 
A number of equally innocent foreigners have been 
murdered from time to time by the unruly brutal- 
ity of this most unlovely of all nations. 

























BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 




BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY. 


One of the strangest features in the character of 
the grizzly bear of North America is his change of 
deportment according to his surroundings. 

“ (Jrsus ferox ” is a perfect example of Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer’s theory of “ heredity ” and “ en- 
vironment.” This lumbering fellow, usually from 
six to nine feet in length, and weighing from four 
hundred to two thousand pounds, has certain traits 
of heredity — his gameness, his slyness, and his well 
marked preferences. 

“Environment” may make him a jolly Friar 
Tuck of the woods or a crafty “ man-eater,” hunt- 
ing the trails with the malignity of the fiercest 
tiger. In a well-watered acorn country, and where 
roots, nuts, and succulent bulbs can be obtained, 
he follows a live and let live policy. In dry 
localities, like inner Arizona and the hills of San 
Bernardino county, California, he becomes a terror 
by day and night. Under similar circumstances, 
the grizzly bear is far more formidable than the 
dreaded lion, tiger, or panther. He loses no heart 
at missing a single spring, but grimly fights on to 
the last, especially with a cub included in the game 
of life or death. 


l8o BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 

I have seen a dozen cavalrymen pumping 
lead ” into a patch of bushes where a grim old she 
bear received seventeen Springfield rifle bullets 
before giving up the ghost. And, no man dared to 
explore that bit of blood-stained underbrush ! 

Age adds an extreme ugliness to the grizzly’s 
** personal” equation. The teeth are worn off, 
the huge claws and the death grapple are relied 
on, and his giant strength and deadly pluck make 
him a terror at close quarters. 

In the early days of ’49 to ’52, vast herds of 
mustangs roved the interior plains of the Sacra- 
mento and San Joaquin in California. Huge 
droves of elk commingled with the “ prodigal 
sons ” of the Conquistadore’s chargers, deer in 
enormous numbers peacefully grazed with yellow, 
flitting bands of antelope, and, along the sloughs and 
rivers, giant grizzlies, then, made their favorite 
haunts. 

They loved to wallow in the tule marshes and 
to fatten upon the bulbed rushes. Their vegetarian 
living led them away from flesh seeking. On the 
broad plains, the other nimbler animals could easily 
elude them, and they lazily followed up the count- 
less thousands of wild cattle and sheep, gorging 
upon the animals which dropped from the herd. 

It was easy for any one to avoid this huge, over- 
fattened grizzly in the open country, and, in those 
days of single shooters and half-ounce balls, the 
big grizzly of the plains held his hide by simple 
possession.” 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


l8l 


The expert “ vaqueros,” in numbers of a dozen, 
soon gauged the degenerate grizzly of the plains. 
They loved to lasso him, and, in open countr}^ 
they were his masters, mounted on their quick- 
turning lasso horses. 

But, a change came ! The steamboats soon 
puffed up through Stockton slough, the plains 
were appropriated, and Ursus ferox, driven to the 
most worthless mountain ranges, became a robber 
by day, a sly thief by night, and his habits sensibly 
changed in ferocity. It was a '' black flag ” and 
no quarter for those who met him on the trail. 
The coast range, the lower Sierra Nevadas, and 
the southern chapparal hills became his home, 
and he changed his bill of fare, often through ne- 
cessity. 

Though his cousins, the silver tip,” the cinna- 
mon,” his northern relative, the polar bear, are 
game enough, they have not the grim dash of the 
big grizzly, whose hereditary ” courage vainly 
struggles against the newer environment ” of 
explosive bullets, multicharge repeating rifles, and 
the heavy modern cartridge. In these piping 
days of amateur bear slayers, the grizzly’s chance 
is reduced to that of the individual stockholder 
fighting a powerful syndicate : he is doomed from 
the first ! 

In the old days, a pack of cur dogs was the 
only aid to the real frontier bear hunter, these 
useful auxiliaries gaining time for the hunter to 
reload, or gain a tree to readjust his batteries. 


i 82 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


Only real huntsmen can appreciate the wonder- 
ful development of the offensive weapons of man 
in the last forty years. From the single shot 
muzzle-loading rifle with its half-ounce ball and 
absurdly light powder charge, to the Winchester 
express, or the thousand-yard Sharp, the develop- 
ment is as marked as the difference between 
Columbus’s three caravels and the Paris ^ St. Paul, 
and New York. 

In the olden days, the “ honors were easy,” and 
now, the chances are decidedly “ agin the b’ar,” 
unless the hunter becomes paralyzed with fear or 
his walking “ machine shop ” refuses to work. It is 
doubtful if any of the young “ cannons ” used by 
British sportsmen against “ rhino,” elephant, and 
giraffe have ever been used in America, nor even 
the almost faultless double-barreled express rifles 
with independent locks. The last are powerful 
enough to kill anything that moves, and the 
chances of a sudden breakdown are almost elimi- 
nated. 

The Spencer, Hotchkiss, Remington, and the 
army Springfield rifle in the hands of a cool man 
are “ deadly weapon ” enough to kill anything on 
the American continent, save a veteran book 
agent. 

The effect of “ environment ” upon “ Mr.Grizzly 
of California ” was demonstrated in the forty davs’ 
flood and three months’ storm of “ sixty-two,” 
which reduced California to an inland sea, and drove 
the wild animals of the Coast range and Serrias 


T BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 183 

down into the foot hills, starving and abnormally 
ferocious. 

The smaller animals perished by myriads, the 
deer died by thousands, their drenched and 
weakened carcasses being unfit for food. Grass, 
nuts, acorns, the winter housekeeping stores of 
the denizens of the woods, were rotted, swept 
away, or covered up in the uprooted forests. 
Whole areas of pines and redwoods thundered 
into ravine and canyon and the clearing house ” 
of Nature was busied for several seasons. 

It was at my boyhood residence on the Soquel 
Creek in Santa Cruz County, in the afflicted Gold- 
en State, that, almost under my eye, a California 
boy fought out, alone, a vendetta with a “ three- 
star” grizzly. . . . 

During the terrible visitation, Morris White, a 
determined-looking Pike County youth, had housed 
in an upland field, his entire store of worldly 
wealth, a yoke of splendid oxen. There was store 
of hay in the squatter’s barns, and, in the rear- 
rangement of the “ wreck of matter and the crush 
of worlds,” the young Missourian and his oxen 
were worth ten dollars a day, either to the county 
or the owners of the sawmills about “ resuming 
operations,” after the flood. The particular mills 
I referred to, sawed away for two years on timber 
which had been hurled down the loosened and 
quaking mountain sides almost to the very car- 
riages of the gleaming “ double circulars.” 

As the oxen furnished the “ pull,” and Morris 


184 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


White oniy the generalship,” by the liberal use 
of the ox gad, the young man counting off the 
days at an eagle per day, was rapidly becoming a 
capitalist. 

At night, his “ Dime ” and “ Baldy ” were se- 
curely garnered up within an impregnable corral 
surrounding the delta of the junction of two creeks 
where the mills were located. Into this inclosure, 
a ridge, too steep for any hoofed animal, ran 
atid formed a sort of nether rampart. It was 
a pleasant dawn of day in later April, when the 
lank Missourian, with the yoke already resting on 
“ Baldy’s ” neck, loudly called for “ Dime ” to 
join his mate under the yoke. There was the soft 
bed where the yoke fellows had rested, and the 
youthful contractor, ox bow in hand, skirmished 
around for the other half of his worldly fortune. 

An extended search where a clump of enormous 
trees braced up the spinal ridge, showed to the 
astounded Pike County lad the carcass of the non- 
appearing “ Dime.” The story told itself. There 
lay the poor animal, its neck broken with a terrific 
blow, and the head turned under ! A considerable 
anatomical disappearance on the brisket and 
foreshoulder told that the “ red slayer ” had made 
a satisfactory meal. 

The woodsmen of the camp were called into 
council and Morris, himself, a mighty hunter for 
one so youthful, swore oaths which set the balmy 
morning air tingling. There was the twelve-inch 
track, the great spread-out hand, and the long 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


1^5 

he^rv’ heel. It was Mr. Grizzly, who had sidled 
alone;; down the mountains, and scenting the warm- 
blooded prey, with one blow of its mighty paw had 
laid out poor Dime,” forever. 

In one fell swoop, he had paralyzed White’s 
engineering operations. Oxen were as gold and 
diamonds in those days, and Baldy ” and 
“ Dime ” were cases of the survival of the fittest ! 
The chance that any other neighbor would break 
up a span of well broken oxen to fill the half- 
empty yoke was a slender one. The one-half of his 
team would either be useless or be sacrificed to 
some thrifty bargainer, while he himself must ex- 
change generalship,” for a more active means of 
making a living. 

He had followed his fearless old father down the 
Platte four years before, and as that old frontier 
warrior put it, ‘‘ had fit the painted Injins in the 
Bad Lands.” They had buried one or two of the 
Whites in that long drag from St. Jo” to Fort 
Bridger, then on to Salt Lake, down the Hum- 
boldt, and standing off fierce Cheyenne, murderous 
Sioux, and thieving Ute, had pre-empted ” a very 
large and lightly held domain in Santa Cruz 
County. 

Familiar with attempted stampede and derisive 
scalp yell, nerved by standing guard and “ pot 
shots ” from the wagon square at the saucy nomads 
of the plains, Morris White swore a deadly ven- 
geance against the grizzly who had laid out the 
“ Benjamin ” of his small flock. “ Dime ” was an 


i86 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


OX of many engaging qualities, and he represented 
the unearned increment ” of the Pike County 
boy’s fortunes. With “ Dime,” fortune flowed in 
upon him ; without him, the contracting business 
was a failure, and, it would take nearly a hundred 
dollars to replace the departed one. 

The day passed with Morris White gloomily in- 
specting the scene of the disaster. An absence of 
two or three hours enabled him to place “ Baldy ” 
under the charge of one of his brothers, with a 
consolatory arrangement that the ox should be 
“worked on shares.” 

And then, having gathered up what little armory 
he could procure, the defiant young Missourian 
laid away his yokes and chains until he should 
have done battle with “ that there b’ar,” as he 
scornfully termed him, with two extremely clench- 
ing defamatory words interjected between the 
words “ there ” and “ b’ar.” 

One of the head sawyers strolled over before 
sundown and found that the lad had bored several 
holes into a soft fir tree about fifteen feet from the 
ground. With strong oaken sticks, well wedged 
in, he had made the foundation for a platform com- 
posed of two eight-inch boards six feet long and 
lashed to the supporting sticks. 

A can of water and a bag of saleratus biscuits, 
with some cold fried bacon, were his rations, and 
his offensive weapons consisted of an old Missis- 
sippi muzzle-loader, a German horseman’s carbine 
of unearthly appearance, and a battered six- 
shooter, 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


187 


Do you mean to say you propose to kill that 
bear with that rig,” cried the astonished lumber- 
man. 

It’s him or me ! ” sullenly replied Morris. “ He 
has busted up my business just as I struck the first 
streak of luck in my life, and I’ll get him, or he’ll 
get me.” 

“ I’m afraid he’ll get you, Morris,” said the 
kindly visitor. “You’ll get tired, and fall off your 
perch.” 

“ I reckon not,” grinned Morris, showing two 
horse shoes which he had heated, drawn out, 
and driven into the tree up to the heads. “ There ! 
With them two horse-shoe clamps and a lariat tied 
around my waist run through the eyes, I can’t fall 
off.” 

Big Jim Hall was agnostic. “ The bear may 
come up to you ! If he pulls your whole rig down, 
where are you ? ” 

“ He won’t get to me,” doggedly answered the 
boy. “ I’ll be getting to him, all the time.” 

And so, at evening fall, the millmen helped to 
place the lad in position, perched up where he 
would have a good view of the remains of “ Dime,” 
and a chance to even up. The fifty men at the 
mill agreed to chip in a dollar apiece if the invader 
were really slain. “ That’s half an ox,” hopefully 
said Morris. “ And, I’ll get the rest of the money 
outen the b’ar.” 

The lad had smeared the tree and his trail with 
the lights and stomach offal of the dead ox to 


1 88 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 

obliterate any human scent. He hung on his un- 
comfortable perch for two weary nights without 
result, and, during the day, he began to run the 
gauntlet of many jokes. 

But a few squatters were attracted by the boy’s 
venture, and one of them, who had notches on his 
rifle and six-shooter for men, as well as b’ar ” and 
“bison,” with “elk” and “panther” to match, 
sagely observed : “ A grizzly always gorges and 
comes back when his prey is a little gamey. That 
b’ar will soon be along.” And, in support of his 
theory, he begged the boon of the orie decent shoot- 
ing-iron in the gulch, the six-shooting Colt’s rifle, 
which was our local pride. 

“ I’ll pay for the gun if anything happens to it. 
I want the boy to have a show as well as the b’ar. 
I’m somehow doubtful of that rig of his.” And he 
made some slugs of preternatural hardness, and 
most carefully heavily charged the six barrels of 
the revolving rifle — “ plum up,” as he pithily 
put it. 

The third night of Morris White’s vigil was 
dark and chill; the wind sighed through the pines, 
and a knot of wiseacres sat around the great fire 
in the log cabin and “ arguefied ” upon the chances. 

“ There’s been so many human footprints around 
that the “ b’ar ” is grown suspicious,” said one. 

“ Mayn’t been a b’ar — a panther,” said another. 

“ There’s the tracks, and the way he wuz killed,” 
lucidly rejoined another. “ He’s sure to come 
back — and — get the boy, too,” said old Uncle Able, 


BOY AGAINST GRI2ZLY 


1S9 

who had been a trapper of might in his younger days. 

The boy’s foolhardy. What could we do to help 
him ? ” It was only two hundred yards over the 
ridge, and three hundred around the point, to 
where the determined lad was keeping his lonely 
vigil. 

I had myself eyed him as one who begs that his 
name will be put down first in a list for a Bala- 
clava charge, or any useless personal feat, but, late 
that night, I lay and listened to the song of the 
pines. The wild forest was vocal, and the purest 
air on earth was sweeping down the terrific rocky 
gorges of Williams Creek. I had apparently 
ignored a remark made by Eben Wright, 
“ There’s nothing to prevent the ‘ b’ar ’ coming in 
here, if he wants to.” That hospitable cabin door 
was never locked for ten years ! I indulged “ a 
pleasing hope,” however, that the b’ar ” would 
prefer the remains of “ Dime ’ to our party in the 
cabin. 

I sprang to my feet in the gloomy hours before 
dawn as a heavy rifle-shot rang out, seemingly at 
my side, and, while the men sprang to their feet, 
another and another sounded, the last two so near 
to each other that they seemed to be one report, 
and, then came a dead silence. It was broken by 
an unearthly yell, fully up to the standard later set 
for me by the Apaches and Sioux, pastmasters of 
all vocal arts. 

It was old Uncle Able who dashed to the dy- 
ing fire and seized a burning brand. “ Let’s all 


tgo 


boy against grizzly 


go over, men, and see what’s happened ! ” There 
was a repetition of the yell, and two quick shots, 
evidently from the revolver. 

‘‘The b’ar’s got him, sure enough,” cried Eben 
Wright, as he grasped a brand, and said : “ I’m 
one to go, who else ?” Then, we all realized that 
there was not a weapon on the place but a little 
unloaded pistol and a broken-down shot-gun. 
The party assembled in front of the cabin. There 
was a dead silence, broken only by the sighing of 
the pines, but, as we moved forward to go around 
the road to the point, whirling the blazing 
brands, something sped up from the rear of the 
corral ! It was Morris White — hatless, breathless, 
and, as was described later, on the dead jump 
like a scared coyote ! 

We dragged him into the cabin, and candles 
were the order of the growing day. One man 
produced a drop of whisky, and then, the youth 
threw himself into a rough chair and passed his 
hands aimlessly through his hair. His revolver 
was dangling by a thong and also his hunting knife. 

“ What’s happened to you ? What’s come of the 
bear?” an excited chorus cried. 

“ He’s over there, chuck full of lead, I hope — 
dern him !’’ growled Morris, as he picked up his 
dangling knife and pistol. His face was bleeding 
from the effects of a fall. 

“Tell us the whole story?” growled “old 
Uncle” Able. “Did he get away from you?” 

‘No. I got away from him ! He’s big as a house 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 19I 

— too ! ” angrily cried the Pike County lad. ‘‘ I 
was half asleep, chilled and cold, when he come a 
tumblin’ and a snortin’ down the hillside. He 
nozed around ugly, and snuffed all over poor 
‘ Dime.’ Then, he gave him one wipe with his 
paw and turned him over, as if he was a dead 
coyote. I waited till I got a good aim, and let 
him have it. And, then he made straight for that 
tree. He roared and got his claws in the cracks oi 
the fine bark and started to cornin’ up. I fired 
twice plump into his breast, and I lost my nerve, 
when I seed him so near me by the flash of the 
gun, and, then, I dropped my rifle ! ” 

He was growlin’ and groanin’ awful, and he 
started a-comin’ up again, and then I hollered. I 
give him two shots of the revolver right in his 
mouth, and then, with one swing of his claw, he 
carried off the whole staging. 

There I was left hanging on the lariat, and I 
couldn’t reach the pistol I had dropped, but, it was 
tied in my belt. 

I swung over, head down, and began to choke, 
and, when I heard the bear a-wallowin’ around down 
in the creek, I cut the lariat with my knife, and 
down kerchunk I come. See here! I ran down back 
into the corral, and fell over a dozen stumps, but 
here I am ! He didn’t get very far. In the 
mornin’. I’ll get Pop’s hounds and find him. He’s 
mortal badly wounded ! ” There was a grim 
silence as the defiant Pike County lad glared at his 
audience. Most of you all, told me a grizzly 


192 


BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 


couldn’t climb ! This one could, you bet your life ! 
It was only the third rifle shot that laid him out, 
somewhat.” 

In the early dawn, we visited the scene, and from 
a safe distance, observed the body of the slain 
'‘ox” pulled around as described. Morris White’s 
perch was dangling from one stick still wedged 
in the breast of the pine. The rifle lay there at 
the foot of the tree. 

The torrents of blood staining the silver gray 
bark of the pine led to a trail ending in the bushes 
near the little creek. It was Morris White who 
had caught up the rifle and ran up the steep hill- 
side. “ Hold on, all !” he yelled, and then, he sent 
a ball whizzing down into the rushes. “ He’s dead 
as a mackerel !” the delighted lad cried, and we 
were soon gathered around the gaunt carcass. 
The Missouri lad had reached him every time ! 

And, now, came setttling day ! The fifty-dollar 
subscription, twenty-five dollars for the skin, 
twenty-five dollars from the nearest Chinese for 
the gall, and thirty dollars for the meat and fat, 
enabled the youth to replace the lamented “ Dime ” 
and have a small surplus. “ But,” he frankly de- 
clared himself, “ I ain’t a-huntin’ no grizzly b’ar 
any more. This fellow was a nine-hundred pounder, 
and, a leetle too big for me !” 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 






i 

i 




Id 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE. 


One of the most unwelcome stations in the 
West at the close of the war, was the territory of 
Arizona. The civil government was almost pow- 
erless, and the murderous Apaches held the whole 
interior. The unorganized territory was sparsely 
settled, and Camp Grant, Camp Apache, Camp 
McDowell, Camp Whipple, and Camp Mohave 
were the only strongly held points in the Land of 
Gold and Blood, with Fort Yuma, on the Colora- 
do River, as the base of supplies. There were 
but two towns, Prescott and Tucson, of any mag- 
nitude. 

The mails and army supplies, forwarded by 
steamer via the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma, 
were transported at enormous expense over the 
old Southern Overland Mail Route. 

One of the bright ideas of the Confederate 
leaders had been to incite the Indians of the 
Northern plains to break up the Northern Over- 
land Mails to the Pacific Coast, and, in the fall of 
’6 1 and spring of ’62, the Texan cavalry swept along 
from Texas and New Mexico, over the southern 
route, through Arizona to Antelope Peak, only sixty 
miles from the Pacific Ocean, at the nearest point 


196 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 

of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a tradition that a 
few hardy Texan Confederates rode over to the 
seashore, and dipped their flags in the waters of 
the western ocean. I climbed Antelope Peak, 
nine hundred feet, to see the stump of the mast, 
on which they left the stars and bars flying defi- 
antly when they retired before Carleton’s com- 
mand, first burning and plundering all the mail 
stations. 

From sixty-five to sixty-eight, the commanders of 
the army posts named above, were the conservators 
of all law and order. Backed up by six or eight 
companies of mixed infantry and cavalry at each 
post, they kept the roads open, escorted trains, 
guarded the mails, and moved on the civilians 
who were forced to travel. 

The troops were partly reliable regular regi- 
ments, and others, filled up with the riff-raff scatter- 
ing westward after the war. Guerrillas, deserters, 
marauders, and all manner of Ishmaelites swarmed 
from El Paso to Fort Yuma, and a “trial of title 
by force,” usually followed the possession of use- 
ful plunder. The Apaches, posted on high 
ground, narrowly watched the sending out of 
heavy scouts, and, signaling all over by mountain 
fires, then incited the fierce Hualapais and others 
to harry the weakened garrisons. Artillery was 
useless, the men suffered from chills and fever, 
they became dejected and deserted, and the hum- 
ble potato (when canned and desiccated) alone 
kept off deadly scurvy. The officers and troops 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


197 


were paid in currency, only available at sixty 
cents, and a gentle admixture of grinding poverty 
varied the lives of men fairly certain of being 
scalped some day. 

Camp McDowell, a strong post on a mountain 
near the juncture of the Verde and Salt River, 
was the link connecting Prescott and Fort Whipple 
with the blazing cremation post of Fort Yuma. 

An ugly canyon some twenty miles long led 
down past the Salt River and Superstition Moun- 
tains toward Maricopa W ells, and this region was 
haunted by the wild Apache bucks from four 
counties — Graham, Gila, Pinal, and Maricopa. 

This mail route from Camp McDowell to Mari- 
copa Wells intersected the line of the buckboard 
express flying on, never halting day or night, from 
Fort Yuma to Tucson. This line rested somewhat 
upon the settled Gila, the friendly Indians along 
its banks keeping the Apaches north, but, after the 
Pima villages were passed, the buckboard express 
always faced dangers similar to McDowell canyon 
in the graveyard defile of the Picacho, along the 
Santa Cruz River to Tucson. On both wings of 
the route, intelligent marauders awaited to murder 
the mail-carriers when any unusually valuable 
mail or remittances were in transit, and the free- 
masonry of crime seems to warn all evil-doers in 
advance of the tempting plunder. Trains, pay- 
masters’ escorts, wagon outfits, express riders, 
had been systematically entrapped for years in a 
land admirably laid out for villainy. 


198 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 

The condition of affairs was almost desperate in 
eighteen sixty-eight, when I was serving with a 
small command in these murder pens, wondering 
whether desperate marauders or sly Indians 
would have the honor of my taking off ! There 
were wistful farewells when any one fared forth 
upon a journey, especially when the troops were 
scouting, for the deadly villains, red and white, 
pressed closer then to all the important places left 
weakened. And, the strange lottery of life, the doc- 
trine of chances ! I was witness of a timid New 
York bride, leaving luxury in New York to travel 
safely over the wildest scenes of Arizona with a 
strangely reckless young husband, the surrender 
of a dog tent to them, with a couch of river 
rushes on the insect-infested sands, being accepted 
as Arabian hospitality, capped with beans, bacon, 
hard-tack, and muddy coffee. So far will love, 
mighty love, blind the children of Cupid ! These 
amiable infant tenderfeet could have crossed the 
plains alone in safety, I am sure, and the same 
season, near me, a gallant officer, the hero of a score 
of desperate Indian fights, was instantly killed by 
one random shot fired by a good-natured but 
drunken Indian. 

My other guest, in that dog tent, and centipede 
and tarantula-infested shakedown, was a brilliant 
young officer, who closed three years of desperate 
service, fighting the mad Apaches, to take a gilded 
staff appointment in the Department of Oregon. 
He rode down through the Picacho, a revolver in 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 1 99 

each hand, the wild steeds dashing along under a 
scattering Apache fire, to reach me at Sweetwater 
in safety. 

“ I am now safe. I have passed all my dangers,’' 
he said, in bidding me “ adieu.” “ I have earned 
a safe place — I shall be married in the spring.” 
And, as I divided my slender store with him, and 
he showed me, proudly, the pictured face of a 
beautiful girl, neither he nor I knew that the 
Apache bullets were never cast to kill him ; but 
that he was on his way to die like a dog, beside 
his gallant General, and be scalped by the cowardly 
Modoc brutes, two thousand miles away. 

It was written in the stars ! In a desperate fight 
that season in the Picacho canyon, where twenty- 
seven men were murdered by the Apaches, the 
only survivor was an eleven-year-old Mexican 
boy, unable to lift a hand in his own defense. 
Death deliberately danced around him, leaving 
him to await his own allotted time of doom ! 

I had learned to wonder at the uselessness of 
various expedients to work the mail through Mc- 
Dowell canyon. Large escorts would be attacked 
and followed from the heights. Stones and bullets 
would hail down upon them. A single man might 
get through ! The trains would be safe at night for 
a time, and then, the tactics of the red fiends would 
change. There was every variety of assorted 
deviltry going on. In many of the gravest fron- 
tier disasters, secret information has been undoubt- 
edly smuggled out by infamous agents of the 


266 


WttY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


enemies of peace. Scallawags, refugees, pretended 
friendly Indians, infamous Mexicans, Apaches 
dressed up as Pimas, Papagoes, or Maricopas, 
have penetrated into the very camps and then 
“ laid for the victims,” almost within gun fire of 
the baffled garrisons. In a thousand schemes, 
some are sure to succeed, and the thieving, cow- 
ardl}^, brutal Apache had every means to make 
his attempt a reasonably sure one. The policy of 
sending the mail carriers out secretly, and giving 
them every latitude of route, worked well for a 
time, and even brave Mexican riders were hired to 
run the gauntlet. 

After a time, McDowell canyon became full of 
little rude crosses with piles of stone thrown 
around them where human blood had slaked the 
arid soil. 

It was in this delightful suburban resort that I 
flushed my first Apache! Two wagons and a 
small detachment toiling on through the pass were 
guarded by a dozen riflemen in the wagons and a 
half dozen scouts marching in readiness. A couple 
of men closed up as rear guard, and on this par- 
ticular evening, I worked out in advance of 
the two men in the lead. The relief from the 
blazing hell of the day was the only comfort, and 
in the enjoyment of a huge briarwood pipe, I 
strolled along with the usual self-consolatory feel- 
ing “ There is not an Indian within fifty miles ! ” 

My heavy revolver was belted on, but, I did not 
even think of it as I turned a bend in the road and 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


201 


came plump on a shock-headed brute sitting on a 
rock looking down into the canyon. A bow and 
quiver were upon his back and a rifle lay across his 
knees. The distant rattle of a trace chain caught 
his ear and he turned his head. We were not ten 
feet apart ! 

By a mere mechanical motion of surprise, I 
grasped the heavy pipe from my mouth, and ‘‘the 
party to whom I had not been introduced ” evi- 
dently thought I was going to shoot him in the back! 
It was hardly possible for him to turn, as his legs 
were dangling over, and I presume that he made 
a wild grab for his rifle to save it. I could have 
pushed him over and probably broken his neck ! 
But, from sheer habit that pipe clung to my fingers 
as if it had been tarred. 

When 1 had regained my presence of mind and 
“yanked ” out my revolver, the Indian let himself 
go and over the cliff he went, dropping out of sight 
like a panther leaping down into darkness. The 
whole performance was no more creditable to the 
Apache brave than to the “ regular army-oh I ” He 
had no time to recover from his “ stage fright,’' 
and, when I sent two shots spinning down into the 
darkness after him, the two foremost riflemen were 
at my side. 

It was an anxious half-hour after that till our 
safety from attack proved that he was probably a 
runner making his way across McDowell canyon 
to the Maricopa divide. Our forward route 
would have left us exposed to be peppered with no 


202 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


return, for we could not get away. I was perfectly 
delighted to find that 1 “ had killed as many 
of him as he did of me,” and that, from perfectly 
natural causes he could not fire his rifle at me 
through his own back. I devoutly hope that 
this follower of Cochise broke his neck in tum- 
bling down the cliff, which was a fairly rocky 
canyon side. There has been no mention of this 
engagement made in any “ official reports,” and 1 
only hope for his reputation as a warrior that he 
said as little to his chief as I did to mine ! It was 
simply after all an informal meeting of two savages. 

But, it was a result of the uncertain chances of 
life in McDowell canyon, that after a few more 
depletions of the garrison by sporadic murder 
the soldiers began to commit trivial offenses which 
led to their being placed in Camp McDowell 
guard-house. An acute-minded Post-Adjudant 
discovered this, and found that many of the 
wearied out and dispirited men preferred to 
trudge up and down the hill wearily carrying back 
loads of fresh water for the garrison from the 
river, than to risk being scalped, or having their 
heads beaten flat with stones. 

The ways of the old soldier ” are past finding 
out. Thrice happy is the man who can invent 
diseases of appalling frequency and weird, un- 
familiar character, and so, spend a fair share of 
his enlistment snugly in hospital, playing Seven 
Up,” ‘‘ California Jack,” and fattening while his 
pay runs on. 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


203 


There were several soldiers at Camp McDowell 
whom the Adjutant could have better spared than 
other men who died under the knife or arrow. 
Among these was notably “ Private Patrick 
Maguire,” of a chequered army career. Names 
were to him as things of protean hue. Enlist- 
ments he had shed as the serpent does its worn- 
out skin, and, he was a past-master of every art of 
malingering by flood and field. The last twenty- 
five years have brought into the regulars ” as 
fine human stock as ornaments any service, but 
immediately at the close of the war, a regiment on 
Western service was the best place to hide an un- 
comfortable personal record. These bad men were 
not in a majority, but they leavened the whole 
mass, and several commands in the territories had 
the reputation of “ trying on their young officers ” 
to the verge of mutiny. It was with the design 
of forcing a fair division of dangerous duty, that 
the Post-Adjutant obtained an order that the 
“ guard-house men ” should be drafted equally 
with the “ duty men ” for the running of the mail 
gauntlet. A tacit understanding at Maricopa 
Wells that the men should be well fed and re- 
freshed with the '' strong waters of Kentucky ” 
made the detail, at last, rather a popular one. Pri- 
vate Patrick Maguire was delving in his well-fur- 
nished brain for schemes whereby to profit by his 
dangerous duties. The appeasing of his Tantalus 
thirst was always “ a well-spring of joy,” but it 
was to him and his partner Tom Doolan, that the 
formation of the whisky express was due ! 


204 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


Given two excellent mules, each man armed 
with a revolver and good Springfield breechloader, 
with double belts of ammunition, the singular pair 
made bi-weekly trips, with great success, fora time. 
A dozen bottles of whisky, purchased at Maricopa 
for a dollar each, and buried just outside the guard 
lines, were always promptly retailed at five dollars 
a bottle to men who had no other means of spend- 
ing their pay. The all-pervading ^‘spiritual influ- 
ence ” which enlivened Camp McDowell was for 
a long time undiscovered, until a little rencontre, 
which permanently broke up the whisky express. 

The most perfect latitude had been given to the 
two chums, who departed as they listed, made the 
trip as they liked, and came into the post from dif- 
ferent directions, sometimes by night, sometimes 
by day. Discharged men going away, settlers from 
the Verde, and casual travelers, often swelled their 
little party. A condemned quartermaster’s mule 
was given them to pack the mail on, and the can- 
)^on seemed to have lost some of its terrors. 

But, like “ that boat on the Mississip,” a fatal 
night came when the two daredevils were jogging 
along up the canyon, with the laden mule trotting 
peaceably between them. There were twenty- 
four bottles of whisky balanced across the pack- 
mule, with the mail sack strapped over the illicit 
pack. A rattling volley from above to the right 
brought poor Tom Doolan off his riding animal 
at the first fire ! 

Save yerself, Patsey,” he cried. I’m hit! ’’ 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


205 


Crawl up into the rocks under the cliff! I’ll 
be with you, in a jiffy ! ” huskily cried Maguire 
as he cut away the mail bag and ran swiftly up 
under the overhanging rocks ! It still lacked two 
hours of daylight, and, Maguire was back like a 
flash! With his hunting knife, he cut away the 
ammunition pouches from the riding mules and 
then, sent them clattering along the road ! “ We’ve 
a few minutes’ to hide, before they’ll be down!” He 
had snatched up Doolan’s rifle and found the very 
spot he wanted ! A re-entrant hollow under the 
overhanging bluff at a bend, where a pile of ragged 
rocks had slid down from the hill over them ! 

With the smartness of an old soldier, he had 
wrenched away the water canteens from the saddle 
bow of the riding animals. 

While he aided Doolan to hide himself in the 
rocks, Maguire listened to a fusillade two hundred 
yards up the road. 

By hokey !” he cried, “ they’re peppering the 
mules ! ” And, while he retrieved all his useful 
articles, he found that Doolan had already got his 
handkerchief twisted around his thigh and cramped 
tight with his revolver barrel. 

“ They’ll not find us till daylight, maybe ,” cried 
Maguire, as he heaped up a barricade of the loose 
stones, while he cheered the wounded partner of 
the “ Whisky Express.’’ “ In five minutes, if they 
hold off, we’ll have a snug little fort here. Try and 
be aisy, now, T om, till I can help you ! ” With the 
haste of desperation, Maguire loaded the two 


2o6 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


Springfields, laid them ready, and brought his re- 
volver round to the front. 

If we had but a bit of the whisky,” groaned 
Maguire. “ I’ve two flasks in me blouse pockets, 
inside,” groaned Doolan. 

“ If they hold off half an hour, glory be to God, 
we may stand them off! ” whispered Maguire, as he 
tugged away at his breast-high wall. There 
was the sound of triumphant yells far up the can- 
yon ringing out now! 

“ Ah ! the devils !” groaned Maguire. They’ve 
caught the mules now. When it’s light and they 
find no sign of us, they’ll be down here after our 
scalps !” 

The “first aid to the injured” of Private Tom 
Doolan was soon replaced by a strong tourniquet 
of Maguire’s suspenders, well twisted up with a 
piece of a dried branch. A few gulps of the 
whisky and Doolan was set up on his knees, 
propped up behind the stone barricade, his revolv- 
er in his hand and Maguire’s revolver slipped in 
the empty holster. 

“You’re not to shoot unless they rush, remem- 
ber, Tom ! ” cautioned General Maguire. “ I can 
stand them off, with the two guns ! ” They had 
doubled cartridge belts and forty extra rounds for 
rifle and revolver in the saddle pockets. 

The men both knew what a grim death awaited 
them ! For the Apaches craved the weapons, and 
ammunition to be found belted around the bodies 
of the men whom they supposed they had killed! 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 207 

Firing a volley directly at the advancing noise, 
the Indians were misled by the positions in which 
they found the animals, which, by instinct, had 
trotted leisurely along on their homeward road! 

And, while the two soldiers at bay, were resolv^ 
ing to sell their lives dearly, the attacking party 
were searching the lower canyon and gully for 
the bodies of the slain! 

The dawn came glimmering slowly into the 
canyon as Maguire, with quick eye, caught the 
first bushy head bobbing around the bend. 
“ There’s no use to fire till they find us,” he 
growled, and every minute we hold off, betters 
the chances of some one coming along the road. 
If it was only two or three travelers we could 
then stand them off! Tom, not a shot from you, 
unless they rush,” hoarsely whispered Maguire. 

“ They’re acting mighty funny,” muttered 
Doolan, with a groan. His thigh was stiffening, 
and the irritation of fever burned in his fingers 
twitching the triggers of the two big army revol- 
vers. 

It was still so dusky that the two men could 
only see the three Indians picking up the trail bit 
by bit ! 

Suddenly, with a shout, the three rushed di- 
rectly up to the bank toward where the sole pro- 
prietors of the Whisky Express grimly awaited 
them. Well the two men cooped up there knew 
the stocky naked forms, the girdle and breech- 
clout, the raw-hide sandals, the quivers of short 


2o8 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


arrows, and the hastily scraped Apache bow. 
There was a revolver and knife at each brute’s belt, 
but, they staggered along with their guns at a 
ready. 

As yet they saw nothing, but when two of them 
came in line, by a mere chance, then Maguire, at 
ten feet distance, sent an ounce bullet plowing 
through them both! The other buck turned, with 
a yell, but Maguire had snatched the second gun 
and killed him before he reached the road! 

Patsy,” whispered Doolan, the reserve, 

we’ve a chance left. These fellows were all 
drunk ! If the others ” 

“Remember!” yelled Maguire, his fighting 
blood up, “ Hold your pistols to the last !” A knot 
of a dozen dusky forms dashed around the corner 
of the bluffs sixty yards away, and, firing wildly, 
made directly for the spot where the bodies of the 
three braves lay ! 

Rifleman Maguire had been trained to fire ten 
shots a minute from his Springfield, and so, he 
worked in seven discharges, dropping five men, be- 
fore three of the rum-infuriated warriors crowned 
the little stony knoll, only to meet the fusillade of 
Doolan’s heavy revolvers as an agonizing surprise ! 
One of the warriors dashed off the bluff into the 
creek gorge, and three rolled and twisted away 
out of sight and fire, more or less crippled ! 

But, seven bodies lay motionless in plain sight of 
the little breastwork ! 

The two men lay glaring out like wild beasts at 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


209 


bay as the merciless sun came up and its rays 
beat down into their little cavern. The effect of 
some random shots from the two angles of the 
bends of the road, the attempt to roll some heavy 
boulders down on them and crush them, and the 
menace of hideous yells ringing through the can- 
yon, alone showed the presence of the red devils ! 

There was no sign of relief, and the excited 
Maguire began to lose all hope when Doolan 
became flighty under the influence of the heat and 
the pain of his wound. Several times the poor 
castaway had to drag his friend down behind the 
breastwork; and the idea of lashing his friend’s 
arms began to dawn upon him. 

These devils will sober off soon ! ” gloomily 
cried Maguire. They’ll wait till night and come 
on with a rush. Then, it’s all up with poor Doolan 
— an’ me. Well, I’ll hold on to one of the revol- 
vers! A couple of shots from it for poor Tom, 
and the last one — for me. I’ll cheat them, at the 
last ! ” 

He considered the idea of lashing the half- 
frantic Doolan to his own body with Doolan’s 
belt. “ I must keep a way to shoot,” he grimly 
decided, and, he was relieved and yet astounded, 
when Doolan’s head sank back in a swoon of ex- 
haustion. 

Poor old Tom! Ye’ll never see Galway Bay 
again ! ” he growled, as the wounded man’s limbs 
relaxed. He rolled him back and covered his 
face with a wet cloth. As he turned his head, 


210 


WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 


fearfully, he saw, to his horror, two or three bushy 
heads peeping up from each side of the ap- 
proaches, as the remaining half-sobered Indians 
tried to crawl up into position. But, the two guns 
handled alternately were too much ! The soldier 
was fighting now for the honor of Galway and to 
save his friend from being scalped. There comes 
a time when desperation alone rules, and Maguire 
had reached the automatic point ! 

His ears had not noted the ringing answer of a 
cavalry bugle provoked by the last rapid fusillade 
as he was watching the crawling up process. 

“ Who is up there in the rocks?” yelled Lieu- 
tenant Witherspoon, as a half-dozen of his men 
chased the last fleeing redskins around the bend. 

A detachment of the Fourteenth Infantry, and 
the U. S. Mails !” proudly cried Maguire, as he 
leaped down the shingle, when he saw the lead 
mules of a heavy train come wagging up the road. 

Come up and help him out ! ” begged Maguire. 

Before Lieutenant Witherspoon’s convoy 
reached Camp McDowell, the teamsters had 
counted the dead Apaches and the empty whisky 
bottles. The story was too good to keep ! When 
Patsy Maguire apologized to the Commander for 
“the mails arriving a little late” — that officer 
kindly said, “ Never mind, Sergeant Maguire, 
you are to have your chevrons for saving your 
friend’s life, but, I will discontinue the Whisky 
Express ! ” 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR 
HARPER’S CABINET 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 



THE SECRET OF DOCTOR 
HARPER’S CABINET. 


There was no unhappier man in the beautiful 
Shenandoah Valley in the gloomy winter of i860 
than that universally beloved old gentleman, St. 
George Beverley Harper, M. D. The election of 
Abraham Lincoln seemed to portend serious 
trouble for the beloved Old Dominion. 

There was no physician as well known in Fred- 
erick, Clarke, and Loudoun counties, as a rigid 
practitioner of the old school of medicine, the 
duello and Arabian hospitality. By means of his 
well-known traveling carriage and his span of 
blacks, guided by old Pompey, Doctor Harper 
distributed calomel, jalap and laudanum with a 
liberal hand, over a vast border area of Maryland 
and Virginia. His life had rippled on serenely at 
Tusculum, his stately home near Winchester, since 
he had retired from society upon the death of a 
beloved wife many years before. His profes- 
sional presence had illustrated many of the high- 
toned affairs of honor in the good old fighting 
days, and at sixty-five, the simple-hearted, fiery 
old patrician was still ready to flare up when the 


214 the secret of doctor harper's cabinet 

** peculiar institution ” or the sacred soil ” was 
endangered. 

“ I can see trouble coming, my boy,” he would 
gloomily remark to his only relative, St. George 
Harper Beverley, the prospective heir of Tuscu- 
lum. This gallant young gentleman, after leaving 
the University of Virginia, was duly moved along 
into that gentlemanly preparation for public life — 
the law — and, was already the ornamental capstone 
of the four hundred and eighty-two young law- 
yers of Charlestown. A daring rider to hounds, 
an excellent sportsman, and the soul of manly 
honor, young Squire Beverley rallied his friends 
around the hospitable board of Tusculum and 
calmly awaited greatness to be thrust upon him. 

Seated upon the broad porch of the old mansion 
house, young Beverley and his friends listened to 
the old Doctor’s forebodings, while they enjoyed 
their after-dinner cigars and proudly gazed upon 
the beautiful vistas of the Shenandoah, then “ fair 
as a garden of the Lord.” 

“ The brunt of it will fall upon you younger 
men,” sadly remarked the old doctor. I was out in 
Mexico, and my fighting days are over, but, I am 
making preparations to meet the trouble. We are 
here on the border, and these clouds seem to lower 
over dear old Virginia.” 

The Yankees will never fight us, they will back 
down, as they always do, in Congress,” hotly 
urged young Persifer Drummond Rhett. He was 
a fiery young local aristocrat, whose personal 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER^S CABINET 215 

knowledge of the detested Yankee was confined 
to an itinerant tin peddler or a meek-eyed, thin- 
chested school teacher. 

But, the old man, seated by one of the six great 
fluted Corinthian columns of the ancient manor 
house, gazed wistfully over his fair inheritance. 
It was a noble old place with stately trees, fair 
meadows, gurgling brooks, and rich, fruitful fields. 
A hundred negroes were cosily domiciled upon 
the broad lands of Tusculum, and much was done 
and undone there in the loose, easy way of the 
fine old Virginia gentleman, all of the olden time! 

I am not so sure, Persifer, my boy,” kindly 
said the venerable host. The power of the North, 
if exerted, will be a mighty one. We always un- 
dervalue our opponents in the struggles of life 1 I 
saw the New York Regiment go up the hill at 
Chepultepec, with as game a rush as the Palmet- 
toes 1 In money and resources, they are far beyond 
us.” Doctor Harper’s mind went back to the days 
when his rosy, clear-eyed Virginia wife swept 
along the piazzas of the great Saratoga hotels like 
an escaped goddess, a memory of the days of Gre- 
cian beauty. He had spent his mornings around 
the Springs, his panama hat lying on his knees, and 
enjoying a rare Cuban cigar, while the “ solid men 
of the great summer resort, gravely consulted 
** upon the state of the Union.” And, a traveled 
man, the doctor knew the preponderating strength 
of the great North, East, and West. “ It will be a 
sad business, gentlemen, if we come to a trial by 


2i6 the secret of doctor harper^s cabinet 

force. Our beloved Southland has high blood, 
brave men to muster in, and the courage of our 
convictions. We are weak in monetary resources, 
railroads, and the manufacturing element. Of 
course, our people and even our blacks are to be 
relied on, but, I fear for the final result, if the war 
is a long one.” 

“ Ah ! ” cried Beverley, “ we will carry the war 
over the borders with a rush and dictate terms at 
Boston, Philadelphia, and New York !” 

“ It may be ! It may be so ! ” the old gentleman 
said, as he wandered away to his library and the 
consideration of his own preparations, leaving the 
young men demolishing the illogical public posi 
tions of the Yankee statesmen. 

An excitable state of feeling soon pervaded the 
whole valley of Virginia, and as the spring days 
came on, the inauguration of Lincoln, the frantic 
wave of enthusiasm rolling up from the gulf, and 
the necessity for the “ Mother of Presidents ” tak- 
ing sides brought about Virginia’s secession on 
April 1 8, and the immediate seizure of the Harper’s 
Ferry arsenal and the Norfolk Navy Yard. 

The land was ablaze, north and south, and there 
was quite a bevy of bright-eyed Virginia girls 
clustered around the white columns of Tusculum 
when Captain St. George Harper Beverly rode 
back from the successful descent upon Harper’s 
Ferry. 

He was a young fellow of handsome and athletic 
proportions, sinewy, well knit, and yet, not a giant 


THE SECRET OE DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 

in stature, and therefore, he had pounced upon the 
very tallest horse available, the longest black 
feather, and one of the antique four and a half foot 
sabres once made by a liberal Ordnance officer for 
the old First Dragoons. 

These fearful blades were, in reality, approximat- 
ing five feet, and their weight and clumsiness made 
it possible for even the simplest Yankee to scram- 
ble away out of reach. They had a curve of dia- 
bolic uselessness, moreover ! But, all looked fair 
in the future of the budding Confederacy. It was 
chock full of fight,” and the never-to-be-replaced 
flower of the South was being hastened forward 
to the Potomac and the Ohio. 

It was natural that Beverley should join Turner 
Ashby’s splendid riders, and he was quite the hero 
of the hour when the spirited beauties decorated 
him with red, white and red rosettes, sword knot, 
and all manner of military coquettish adornments. 

And, then, lightly the gallant young hearts went 
forth to battle for States’ Rights and old Virginia ! 
With fond affection, the brave girls “bound their 
warrior’s sash,” but, sad and gloomy years were 
stretched out before them, hidden behind the pall 
of Bull Run’s battle smoke I 
The old master of Tusculum had not urged on 
immediate secession ; his silver hairs were seen in 
the Convention voicing the noble words of John 
Bell, Crittenden, and other moderate patriots. 
But, all in Arain, and, after the bevy of young 
people had departed to other homes, to speed oth er 


2i8 the secret op doctor harper’s cabinet 

departing warriors, the Doctor and his nephew 
dined sadly alone. 

At daybreak the young captain was to ride away 
to Manassas, and his preparations were now all con- 
cluded. “ Hank ” and Rube,” two of the likeliest 
negro boys, were to be his henchmen, the one to 
act as military valet, the other to take care of the 
two blooded chargers. The two men had wan- 
dered up to a knoll from which the whole 
beautiful Potomac region could be descried. 

It was glowing in its loveliness, and not a blood- 
stain smeared God’s tender, budding grass. 

The “ Old Dominion ” was ablaze now ! No one 
knew of the horrors and devastation to come. In 
vain, young Beverley urged that the Southern 
army would keep the Yankees north of the 
Potomac. “ My boy,” sadly said the Doctor, “ it is a 
sluggish giant, that Northern people, but they are 
making vast preparations. I fear that the torrent 
of war will burst soon upon our peaceful homes.” 

When all was done that night, and Beverley had 
received every instruction from the old surgeon as 
to health, possible wounds, and a hundred details, 
the old man laid his hand in blessing upon the 
young knight. 

I am sorry that I am not a richer man, my 
boy,” the veteran kindly said. “ Here is five hun- 
dred dollars in gold. Treasure it. Our troops 
will soon be poorly provided — poorly paid.” 

I have left the old place to you, the colored 
people go with it. Heaven knows what their fate 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 219 

will be in this war — which I see now will be long 
and bloody. I could not realize any money for 
you save by selling the dear old place, or a large 
portion of the slaves. Either act would be a prac- 
tical treason to our community now ! But, I have 
made some prudent provision for you, in so far 
as I could, and Doctor Hall, our dear old pastor, 
will know of it. I have hardly decided upon the 
last steps. If you are spared to come back to me, 
if I am here to meet you, I will act myself, and, 
if I am called away, he and his wife alone, will 
know what I have done for you.'’ 

There were grateful tears in the young man’s 
eyes, as he said “ Good night,” and long after he 
had sought his room, he could hear the old doctor 
pacing his own apartment wrapped in gloomy 
forebodings. 

When the gallant young captain galloped away 
the next morning, he paused a half-mile away to 
snatch a last fond look of the antiquated glories 
of dear old Tusculum. 

None of us is a prophet in his own time, and 
few dreams seem wilder than that in the next two 
years, a grave, careless-looking, obscure professor 
of mathematics at the Virginia Military Institute 
would make the name of ‘‘ Stonewall Jackson ” 
deathless for all time ! That the campaigns of the 
Shenandoah would bring out of the dreamy man 
the iron valor of a Ney, the headlong gallantry of 
a Lannes, and the irresistibility of a Wellington ! 
But, it was written in the stars ! The lonely region 


220 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPEr’s CABINET 

seemed to be framed to illustrate that marvelous 
military career of two years, which caused the 
great Lee to despairingly cry, after the gloriously 
fatal day of Chancellorsville : He is better off 
than I am. He lost his left arm. I have lost my 
right!” The whole region which the old doctor 
had ridden over seemed to be only a death trap 
for the Federal armies, and the death of Stone- 
wall Jackson, and the coming of that grim swords- 
man, Philip Sheridan, alone turned the tide of de- 
feat I 

The red plowshare of war was driven through 
the heart of the lovely Shenandoah at last, and 
Doctor Hall had preached the funeral sermon 
over the friend of his youth, long before Major 
Beverley, sick, wounded, sore at heart, and pen- 
niless, was turned loose, a returned prisoner of 
war, at the Potomac to look at the ravages of 
Sheridan’s cavalry. 

For two years, the veteran Confederate had re- 
ceived no news of his home, save the tidings of 
the death of the old doctor, who saw the last 
hopes of his fellow Confederates perish one by 
one. 

Winchester was shot and shell torn ! Its streets 
were garrisoned by Federal soldiers and beyond 
a parole and a vast experience of gallant and hope- 
less fighting, St. George Harper Beverley was 
absolutely Avithout belongings of any kind 1 He 
found a mass of straggling blacks hanging around 
the dear old town, where he was forgotten, and, in 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 221 

whose halls the stern Provost-Marshal ruled gruff- 
ly. The war had been fought out at last ! Virginia 
had been torn in two, and at thirty, the Confeder 
ate veteran gazed, sick at heart, upon the ruin 
of his section, his State, and his family fortunes. 

A first pilgrimage to his uncle’s tomb nerved 
him to depart with the aid of a few straggling 
friends, finally met with, to revisit Tusculum, the 
home of his youth. Riding on a borrowed mule, 
he journeyed over the old roads once so familiar. 
The whole beautiful face of Nature had changed ! 
Sheridan’s wild troopers and the ebb and flow 
of armies had swept away houses, barns, bridges, 
fences, stock, crops, and all that made the valley 
habitable. 

The abandoned wrecks of military property 
alone, marked the tide of Federal or Confederate 
disaster. 

When at last, St. George Beverley crowned 
the well-remembered knoll, he groaned in the 
anguish of a bitter heart. Only a heap of black- 
ened ashes marked the site of the old mansion- 
house. The woods had been swept away for 
picket fires, the gardens were uprooted, the offices 
leveled to the ground, the orchards and fields 
were bare and blasted. 

Here and there, a tottering chimney told of the 
red hoof of war which had plowed with fire this 
once smiling Paradise ! 

“ Why in God’s name did I not stop a Federal 
bullet that bit deep enough?” the penniless Major 


222 THE SECRET OP DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 

groaned, and his hand fell on the butt of a revol- 
ver which had been his only trophy of victory. 

No; not by my own hand N he cried, as his eyes 
rested upon a few white stones marking the family 
cemetery. 

They had spared his mother’s grave, and there 
he found the blessed relief of tears. He prayed 
beside that grave and dedicated himself to a new 
life ! 

There was nothing to linger for. The negro 
quarters had all vanished. There was no stock, 
only a few wandering razor-backs. The blacks 
had evidently been impressed or swept away to 
join the great helpless mass then cowering around 
Georgetown, “ in the full enjoyment of the blessings 
of liberty.” 

On his way back to Winchester, he tossed up a 
copper cent, one of his boyish luck pieces. He 
had a distant connection at Hagerstown who had 
already offered a temporary refuge. 

Heads, I go out to the Pacific Coast ! Tails, I 
stay and try and work into the Baltimore Bar ! 
This is a dead land. A shrine of battle memories. 
And, twenty-five years must pass before it can 
begin to recover.” 

He duly returned his borrowed mule and sought 
out the old pastor at Winchester. Perhaps there 
was some little thing left hidden away — the trust 
which his uncle had hinted at ! Alas ! Doctor 
Hall was dead, and Mrs. Hall had sought a refuge 
wTh some family friends in Kentucky or Tennessee. 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 223 

And so, girding up his loins, he crossed the Po- 
tomac to begin life anew at Hagerstown. 

It was three years later, when the winning of a 
celebrated case sent the rising lawyer’s name over 
the border States with the most friendly en- 
comiums upon his talents and record. A nomina- 
tion for Congress followed and in the press of the 
political fight. Major Beverley was astounded to 
receive a letter from Cynthiana, Kentucky, signed 
by the pastor’s widow. It transmitted a letter 
from his dead uncle with a drawing of the secret 
drawers of a famous old cabinet which had been 
the pride of Tusculum. The words of the dead 
man stirred up strange memories of that last night ! 
“ There is a treasure hidden in the cabinet for 
you, my boy. I have concealed it, knowing that 
if you survive the war it will be only to meet pov- 
erty and hardship, on your upward way in life !” 

In the few words, the budding Congressman 
recognized the paternal tenderness of his dear old 
clansman. 

How well he remembered that old mahogany 
cabinet, a piece of ponderous joiner work. Three 
great drawers below, a desk-lid dropping down, 
counterpoised by huge concealed interior weights, 
a wonderful nesting of drawers, and an inner mir- 
ror, with one large drawer at the top, in the rear 
of which the secret compartments were ingen- 
iously masked. A huge mahogany slab, split and 
turned sideways, displayed on this swinging door 
the most magnificent tracery of grain, and the 


2 24 the secret of doctor harper’s cabinet 

dark, red polish of a hundred years made the old 
cabinet a thing of beauty. Its gilt-bronze hatch- 
ings and scutcheons were worked with the Bever- 
ley arms. 

Major Beverley had, in some loose fashion, set ■ 
up a suzerainty over the place where Tusculum 
had once opened its hospitable doors. A few of the 
negroes had wandered back, and were half starving 
along there, on shares.” The history of the sad 
past had been picked up bit by bit. Tusculum 
had been used as quarters by a dozen leading Gen- 
erals on each side. It had later been turned into 
a hospital, and finally burned down as the result 
of military vandalism, its imposing front inviting 
such retribution in the bitter days of the Early 
and Sheridan campaigns. But the silver, the por- 
traits, the valuable furniture, the library, all the 
treasure had been gradually looted one by one ; 
the floors were ripped up in search of hidden 
treasure ! Major Beverley was a Congressman 
before he had succeeded in tracing the vanishing 
movements of the well-remembered cabinet. After 
the hospital use of the old house had ruined it for 
residence, Tusculum was used as a forage depot 
for a season — preparatory to its holocaust. 

An old family negro was unearthed who told 
the tale of a Yankee Quartermaster who packed 
up the cabinet and had it moved Potomacward. 
Much futile correspondence with the pastor’s wife 
and considerable trouble ended in a final abandon- 
ment of the search. 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 225 

But, there are strange turns of fortune’s wheels 
even in the histories of inanimate as well as ani- 
mate cabinets ! One of the first civic honors be- 
stowed upon Congressman Beverley was the invita- 
tion to make an address at the dedication of the 
Confederate Military Cemetery at Hagerstown. 

For, loving hands had gathered up the remains 
of the brave Southrons who died at Sharps- 
burg, at South Mountain, Boonsboro, and Keedys- 
ville, as well as Falling Waters. 

A dinner was given to several of the visiting 
dignitaries at the nearest mansion house to the 
now consecrated grounds. 

Major Beverley was enjoying his after-dinner 
cigar with his host, when the ceremonial festivi- 
ties were over, and the two talked war a bit,” 
as was the fashion of those days. For now, a 
generation has arisen which knows not Joseph ! 
The old soldier is relegated to obscurity, and the 
oceans of costly blood shed in a vain struggle to 
settle the unsettled enigma of the blacks seem to 
have been forgotten, save in family tradition ! 

Suddenly Beverley walked up to a cabinet, 
which was one of the pieces de resistance of the li- 
brary. It needed but a glance to tell him that the 
lost was found ! 

“ Pray tell me, Colonel Houghton, where you 
obtained this beautiful old piece of furniture,” 
said the Congressman, with a thrill of loving 
awakening memories. 

That,” laughed his host, '' is about the only 


226 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 

thing I made, as a clear profit by the war ! 

Some of McClellan’s excellent artillerists 
shelled my old home into flames, and the Federal 
soldiers swept over my farm like the proverbial 
Tartar, whose horse’s hoof marks a period to all 
future fertility. I was skinned alive!” The Mary- 
lander “ sighed his reminiscences.” “ But, this 
beautiful old cabinet was brought out of the Shen- 
andoah Valley by a good-natured Yankee quarter- 
master, who told me he found it in an old mansion 
where every other portable thing had been carried 
off. Some marauders burned the old place after- 
ward, and, as he was Depot Quartermaster at Hag- 
erstown for along while, we exchanged some civili- 
ties. He gave it to me, as it was far too massive 
to send north, and really begged me to try and 
find an owner. ‘‘You see there’s a coat of arms 
on the hatchings.” 

“ So there is. Colonel — mine !” quietly said Major 
Beverley, handing his host his seal ring. 

That night, when the guests had departed, the 
two Southern friends, aided by the drawing, suc- 
ceeded in opening the long hidden secret drawer, 
four feet long and about six inches wide. 

The sum of five thousand dollars in gold five 
dollar pieces was found secreted carefully there, 
the coins being wrapped in rouleaux and the 
packages padded to prevent a jingling noise. 

There was also, an envelope with a deposit 
receipt of Coutts & Child’s Bank, London, for two 
thousand pounds in gold to the joint and several 


THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER’s CABINET 227 

order of the uncle and nephew, and the deeds to 
several hundred acres of coal lands in Kentucky 
which had been a notable family investment. A will 
bequeathing the whole to St. George Harper Bev- 
erley was the last article concealed in the drawer. 

“ I trust that the old home will be spared, 
and, that I may live to see you return in honor! ” 
so ran the last letter of the keen-sighted old 
doctor. If Doctor Hall sees fit, he may re- 
move and conceal these matters in a safer place, 
but, I trust that my age and non-combatant char- 
acter will serve to save dear old Tusculum from 
the torch. I have a fatal presentiment that the 
South will not win ! Sheer exhaustion of material 
resource and population will turn the scale against 
us in a long war. My only hope is in some brilliant 
Southern general conquering a peace by some 
great blow 1” 

The men turned their eyes away with bitter 
tears, for Stonewall Jackson’s name came back 
like the mournful sigh of the wind through the 
pines ! Had he lived to command the great charge 
at Gettysburg, a peace might have followed the suc- 
cess of that thunderbolt of war 1 But, it was other- 
wise ordained ! And, later, when Major Beverley 
sold the coal lands for a half a million dollars, a 
new mansion rose on the olden site, and a fair- 
faced Virginian wife often told her children the 
story of the secret of the old Doctor’s cabinet, 
which was “ Home again 1 ” 




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THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT 
ARMAND CAIRE 

BY 


RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 



THE MYSTERY OF SER- 
GEANT ARMAND CAIRE. 


There was no doubt that Sergeant Armand Caire 
of “ Ours,” was a walking mystery, and a very 
handsome mystery, too. Seated in my quarters at 
our battalion headquarters at Rowell’s Point, I 
often followed his alert soldierly figure, as with 
springing step he crossed the parade. '' Some 
mystery locked up under your shell jacket, my 
good-looking French friend,” I decided, “and — 
a very well-guarded secret, too.” 

Many a meditative pipe I smoked, while idly 
watching the silver yacht sails flit by on the 
Sound, or listening to the music floating over the 
tranquil waters from the great Fall River summer 
boats. I was young to the service myself, impul- 
sive, generous, and ardent at twenty-three. I had 
observed the many accomplishments of the Gallic 
stranger who had worked himself up from recruit 
to first-class private, corporal, and sergeant in two 
years. 

In my cozy Lieutenant’s cottage I fain would 
have sent for Armand Caire and tendered him the 
use of my books, papers, and the little adjuncts 
which make garrison life pass lightly away. There 


232 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 

was, however, a limit to polite intrusion, and the 
young Gaul knew how to hold his tongue. He 
was the very picture of a soldier. Thirty or thirty- 
three, brown, sinewy, of active and elegant fig- 
ure, his mustache and imperial bespoke the pro- 
fessional French soldier. He was a correct and 
fluent English scholar, a fact which surprised me. 
A pair of steady, dark eyes, an olive cheek, a 
graceful oval face, and delicate -hands and feet 
marked “ race,” as far as externals can be safely 
taken as guide. 

Of course, in the sixteen or eighteen battalion 
officers, there were experienced men of our special 
Corps who had thrown away much useless previous 
sympathy on men tied down in the ranks beneath 
their station in life. Several epaulette-bearers 
prophesied final disaster as the result of Armand 
Cairo’s rapid rise. There was only first sergeant 
and sergeant-major between him and perhaps a 
Lieutenancy in a line Regiment. 

And, yet there were obstacles! No one in the 
command was ignorant of his thorough mas- 
tery of men, drill, and tactics. His military char- 
acter was irreproachable. A delicate smoker, he 
avoided the sutler’s store, and his leisure was 
passed m athletic recreation, in sketching, or 
with his beloved violin. The elevation to a ser- 
geantry had given him a room of his own, and a 
very handsome sketching case and violin were 
the only ornaments of his den. A few water 
colors and some exquisite professional projects 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 233 

took the place of the cheap battle scenes and 
glimpses of womanly beauty which our *^non 
corns ” usually culled from the illustrated weeklies 
to adorn their rough dens. 

On inspection tours, I passed through Sergeant 
Caire’s room with a mere perfunctory glance of 
approval. There was not a photograph, not a 
woman’s face, nothing to indicate that he had any 
life outside of Upton or the Aide M^moire. 

One day, he flushed, as his eyes met mine, when 
my sword hilt displaced a dainty volume of De- 
Musset’s poems from his drawing desk. I picked 
it up hastily and could not avoid seeing the words 
traced, in a dainty hand, Marguerite to Armand.” 
There was a date — but — I had seen all too much ! 

And, then, Armand Caire’s eyes met mine, with 
the glance half pleading, half defiant, which sealed 
the door of the tomb once more ! 

Our Sergeants were mostly sturdy, well set up 
Germans, happy in receiving almost an officer’s 
pay at home — some exceptionally fine Irish-Ameri- 
cans, and one or two practical Americans of real 
value, for in our corps every non com ” and 
man, was required to be an artificer of some sort. 
And, a better lot of men were never gathered 
together. The war was just over and we had 
promoted up into our double allowance of Ser- 
geants and Corporals many men who would have 
made good commissioned officers. In later years, 
I have marked their general success in attaining 
permanent and good stations. Among these men, 


234 the mystery of sergeant arm and caire 

Armand Caire was hardly popular. He was hon 
camarade, and yet — he was of another world ! The 
army verdict upon skeletons in the closet ” is 
usually a harsh one, and Sergeant Caire was sup- 
posed to be prudently silent for cause. And yet, 
he never drifted into trouble, he joined no cabals, 
and was apparently as happy and prosperous as a 
man could be under the yellow chevrons of a ser- 
geant. 

No one had ever gained his confidence, and 
no one cared to press upon his polite reserve. 
He took but little leave of absence, and on occa- 
sion had been seen at the performances of the 
better French companies giving opera or drama 
in New York City. 

The perfect performance of his duty and his 
equable character made him respected by the men, 
the officers learned to depend upon him, and, only 
among the ladies of the post, was he a standing 
object of wonderment. His taste in decoration, 
his worderful arts in improving some pleasure 
grounds, his ready resource on all occasions, 
proved him to be a master of many branches of 
technique. 

All the officers of our corps were above pump- 
ing or following the man up, and, but one singu- 
larity of demeanor was noticed. He always went 
over to the little village postoffice, a mile and a 
half away, and posted his own letters himself. It 
was impossible for him to prevent his mail being 
received ^‘through the usual channels,” which 


THE MYSTERY OF bJiRGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 235 

meant in the Army, the Battalion Quartermaster. 

After one of our summer hops, a chorus of ladies 
took up the fascinating subject of the mystery of 
Sergeant Arm and Caire. 

There’s one thing I do like about him,” said a 
very distinguished veteran officer. He strictly 
minds his own business. Nearly all the 'dis- 
tinguished foreigners ’ whom I have met with in 
our service are veiled scamps. They usually are 
pleasant bootlicks, and obsequiously creep upon 
the notice of officers and their families. This man 
is a thoroughbred, in his behavior. He certainly 
deserves promotion in time, and yet, there is al- 
ways the real element of 'character.’ I have in 
fifteen years of Army life, been several times fasci- 
nated with supposed ' broken down ’ European 
gentlemen: Grafs, Barons, Chevaliers, and Counts, 
' younger sons ’ decidedly gone wrong — as a rule 
they ' work the sympathy act,’ and either make a 
snug nest by base arts, or, when trusted, decamp 
with the post funds or play some low prank. The 
only real ‘ Lord ’ I ever discovered, was a rattling 
good fellow at heart and a farrier in a Western 
cavalry regiment. When ‘^discovered,’ he flatly 
declined ' fatted calf,’ and went on hammering 
gayly on horse and mule shoes, until really plucked 
away by the British Minister. 

" He was a jovial youth of a very fresh complex- 
ion, simple ways, a good soldier, a mighty drink- 
er, and, he always said that the "Texas bron- 
chos ” were " no end of a lark ! ” None of them 


236 THE MYSTERY OE SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 

could ever kick His Farrier Lordship loose ! But, 
bless you, he didn’t want promotion, and he guyed 
his own officers ! 

The usual number of croakers went on predict- 
ing that in due time Sergeant Armand Caire 
would “ make a break,” but, he never did ! And 
when one-fifth of our force was suddenly ordered 
to California to garrison a wild wind-swept isl- 
and in San Francisco Bay, thither went the refined 
stranger as second sergeant of “ K ” Co. On the 
voyage out, in the ante-railroad days, his demeanor 
was perfect. We had taken in some new men to 
fill up the roster, as second-class privates, and 
among them, a few graceless souls who only 
joined the command of about two hundred, to get 
a comfortable steamer passage to California, and 
then abscond in that Golden Land. 

The relaxation of discipline due to a crowded 
steamer, the tropical heat of the Caribbean, the 
opportunities of the Panama transit caused a few 
frays and disorders among the more turbulent of 
these few undesirable men. 

In one of these ententes^ before we had the men 
fairly in hand on the old Colorado, Sergeant Caire 
was obliged to severely punish one of the new re- 
cruits named Sneath, a sneaking smart sea-lawyer 
sort of a fellow, whose mean ways and cunning arts 
led him later into various secret delinquencies. 
The handsome Frenchman’s violin was greatly in 
demand, as we glided along the purpled Mexican 
coast, and, one evening, after the impromptu con- 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE ^37 

cert was over^ a quartermaster of the steamboat 
took the sergeant aside. ‘‘ There’s one of your 
fellows, that^ne,” and the son of Neptune pointed 
out Sneath, “ has sworn the most awful oaths to 
get even with you. Look out for a knife in your 
ribs, some dark night. Watch that fellow; he 
means mischief, and he is a dangerous dog ! ” 

The cool Frenchman thanked his nautical men- 
tor. I will watch him. I fancy, however, that 
he will turn up missing some day, out there, when 
we take post. He does not look as if he would 
dare to hurt any one ! But, I’m obliged to you all 
the same !” 

To the surprise of the command, Sneath, upon 
our arrival at our island home, showed no -disposi- 
tion to clear out. Within a month, he had got 
into ‘'daily duty, postal clerk, company clerk 
work, and quartermaster’s papers,” as a relief from 
the soldierly duties of standing guard, and the 
artificers’ work of aiding to build that pretty post 
where I spent the three happiest years of my life. 

We soon lost a few men whom we were really 
glad to drop from the roster, for good new men were 
available, drawn to us by our higher pay, quicker 
promotion, and double allowance of Sergeants and 
Corporals. I had been “ Officer of the Day ” when 
Sneath was punished, and I noted the relentless 
glare of the eyes he turned upon the disciplinary 
sergeant. So, feeling that black blood existed be- 
tween the men, I narrowly watched Sneath’s rapid 
rise at the new post to a sort of general utility 


238 THE mystery of sergeant armand caire 

man. He was a remarkable penman, quick and 
accurate at accounts, and soon drifted into a snug 
clerical berth, with considerable perquisites, and 
one which only called on him to carry a gun once 
in every two months at muster. I noted with 
satisfaction that this separated Sergeant Caire and 
his avowed enemy, for the steamer Quarter- 
master had also warned, me against some attempt 
at crime. 

“ If it’s ever anything, it will be a knife stab in 
the dark,” I muttered, having several times caught 
Sneath’s mean, yellow eyes following the Sergeant 
around. In fact, I bade Caire keep his door locked 
at night, as the separate Sergeants’ rooms in the 
new barracks enabled him to do. 

But, a strange change in the demeanor of Ar- 
mand Caire soon became to me a matter of grave 
concern. As the beautiful new garrison neared 
completion, the alert French soldier seemed to lose 
both heart and self-control. His eyes became hag- 
gard, his very habits altered, and when not on 
dut3% I often observed him pacing the sandy 
shores of the lonely island like a restless wolf. 

There was no hidden dissipation, there was no 
apparent bodily lesion. But, the lines of his face 
were grave and stern, and he moved about his 
duties as one under a sentence of death. When 
the non-commissioned staff reported to me that the 
Sergeant’s barrack dercieanor was that of an 
utter hopeless listlessness, I forced my nearest 
friend, our post-surgeon, to send for Caire and 
carefully examine him. 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 239 

It beats me ! ” exclaimed my housemate, the 
bothered son of Esculapius. “ Six months ago, at 
fencing drill, as general instructor, I thought I 
never had seen a more soldierly figure. Some- 
thing, it seems, has gone out of the man’s life, 
never to return ! If he would only talk,” sadly 
concluded Dr. Welcker. “But he has the same 
right to his mental privacy, as the Commander-in- 
Chief. I give it up, but I will have Halton, our 
English hospital steward, keep a good eye on him. 
They are great cronies, for Halton was in a medical 
school in Paris.” 

Circumstances made me post-commander for a 
period of five or six weeks in the early spring 
after our arrival, for the four senior officers and 
the surgeon went away on a tour to the Yosemite 
Valley. 

“ Can I do anything for you. Lieutenant?” said 
the Brevet-Colonel in command, as I was left with 
only my ten sergeants, ten corporals, and one 
hundred and fifty men to associate with. True, 
there was the hospital steward, but, I must look to 
civilian visitors for my mind brightening, as my 
golden epaulettes barred me from any close asso- 
ciation with my command. 

“ Yes, Colonel ! ” I cried. “ Take poor Sergeant 
Caire along with you. “ He will make you some 
exquisite sketches, and be of use to you. You 
have two or three enlisted men to look after. He 
will keep them straight.” 

“ By Jove ! That’s a good idea ! He has been 


240 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 

moping, and the man has earned a bit of diversion ! 
His work on our model battery has been fault- 
less!” 

A half an hour later, I saw Sergeant Caire walk 
away from my commander’s quarters. 

“ Strange fellow, that,” said the Colonel. ‘‘ Proud 
as a king — thanked me — declined the billet, and 
said he was expecting some important communi- 
cations soon. By the way, you can give him ten 
days’ leave of absence, while I am away. If you can 
get him over to San Francisco, perhaps even a 
few wholesome infractions of duty, a bit of a 
“ blow out,” may wake him up. The man’s 
simply hipped and melancholy.” 

I lost no time, after I became the autocrat of the 
island, in sending for the “ Silent Sergeant,” as he 
was now termed. It is strange how embarrassed 
I felt in deliberately trying to peep behind the 
scenes of his hidden life. Thank you, Lieutenant,” 
he said, “ I prefer not to leave the island.” He 
saluted, and then, stood awaiting his dismissal,with 
the air of a man who knows his personal rights. 

I sighed that I could not enforce my ideas of 
letting some sunlight in upon his darkened soul, 
but, in our republican land, the difference between 
officer and soldier is a vast one. Even in auto- 
cratic Russia, haughty Prussia, or medieval Aus- 
tria, the gulf is not wider. Our regulations seem 
to have been guided by the old English “ mutiny 
act,” and the absurd caste and fantastic notions in 
vogue when our military laws were copied from 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 241 

the old English purchase system rules. I tried to 
throw some brotherly kindness into my voice. 

I am afraid, Sergeant Caire, you miss the bon- 
homie of the French service. There are so many 
gentlemen,” I emphasized the word, “ who think 
they can speedily rise to a commission, here, by 
enlisting and then working their way up. We are 
^ plus aristocrates que les vrais aristocratesl And, 
yet, in an Infantry or Cavalry regiment, you might 
rise, in a few years. Have you no friends in the 
country ? ” The man was ten years my senior, 
and he could see my boyish kindness struggling 
for utterance. 

Not a friend in the world, — but — you, Mon 
Lieutenant ! ” 

He smiled sadly, as 1 blurted out, “ If you 
would only tell me — I see that you are unhappy — 
I might help you.” 

Ah ! Monsieur ! ” he softly said, some sorrows 
lie too deep for words. I have no future, — the 
past is voiceless — now. Pray excuse me. I shall 
never forget your kindness. I have been a gen- 
tleman — I don’t deny it ! ” 

It was in my private room that our hands met, 
as I impulsively cried : “ And— you will be one 

always ! If you feel the need of a friend, come to 
me, send for me to your room at barracks, and I 
will do what I can.” 

I shall never forget your noble words,” he 
said. “ If I ever cross the line, it will only be to 
confide in you. And the reason why I sought your 


242 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 

Corps for service was the officers are all men of dis- 
tinction, and I have been treated like a man.” 

He was gone after I had vainly pleaded again 
to induce him to take the ten days’ leave and have 
a little run. 

Four weeks from that day, I walked down the 
parade to make a critical inspection of the double 
company anent the return of the chief. A wild, 
unnerving California wind was whistling over the 
island. It was one of the days when men’s minds 
and tempers go strangely awry ! 

To my astonishment. Sergeant Armand Caire 
was reported absent! It was the first offense ever 
marked up of the kind. Turning to a file closer, I 
ordered him to step over to the barracks and turn 
out the delinquent. “ I’ve tried his room, sir ” re- 
ported the First Sergeant. “ Both doors are tightly 
locked!” 

With a sudden misgiving, I left the company at 
parade rest, and beckoning to the First Sergeant, 
entered the narrow hallway leading to the two 
sergeants’ rooms facing each other. 

Rapping smartly on his door with the pommel 
of my drawn sword, I sharply cried, “ Sergeant 
Caire ! ” 

There was a clear response ‘‘ Here ! ” and then, 
rang out a deafening report. The First Sergeant 
and I leaped at the door with a common impulse 
of shoulders. It gave way with a crash ! 

There on the bed, dressed in his full uniform, lay 
the soldier who had answerd Here ! ” for the last 
time on earth ! 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 243 

• 

He was dead, and upon the table lay a pack 
age marked with my name. “ Suicide ! ” cried the 
startled Orderly Sergeant. 

I sent the Sergeant on the run to send me the 
hospital steward and the post-guard with a 
stretcher. 

I’ve been afraid of this for some time, sir,” 
said Halton, as he dropped the nerveless arm. 
“ Poor Armand ! He is gone. Time expired — 
now!” With a desire to trace the mysterious 
cause, I sent the Sergeant to inspect and dismiss 
the company. Halton and I made a thorough 
private search of the room. There was nothing 
save the fragments of a tattered letter on which 
I could trace the word “ Marguerite.” 

Under my own eyes, the dead soldier’s belong- 
ings were sealed up, and deposited in a doubly 
locked vacant room in my own quarters to await 
the commander’s return. I decided not to open 
the package addressed to me until then, from 
motives of official delicacy. 

As became my duty, two days later, we buried 
the unhappy man, with full martial honors, upon 
the bleak hillside of the storm-lashed north side 
of the island, and a fresh red mound met the eyes 
of my astonished chief on his return. 

I reported all but one little incident, the last 
being that when the company broke ranks after 
the soldier’s volleys three had been fired for the 
poor French exile, Sneath had mockingly cried, 
^‘and so, good-by— for good— Mr. Johnny Cra- 


244 the mystery of sergeant armand caire 

paud,” for which brutality, Sergeant Dennis 
O’Brien, a warm-hearted Celt, promptly adminis- 
tered a wholesome beating, which was passed over 
by the commanding officer, viz., myself! 

When the chief returned, I begged the instruc- 
tions of that delicate-minded gentleman as to Ser- 
geant Armand Caire’s still unopened packet. “ It 
was his own choice that you — and no one else 
should receive that packet. I have no instruc- 
tions to give you. Use your honor as an officer, 
and your sense of gentlemanly obligation. If 
there is aught you should report to me, you know 
your duty.” 

I unfastened the sealed parcel with trembling 
fingers in my own room. As I fancied, it was the 
little copy of De Musset’s poems. There was an 
envelope in which he had traced these lines : 

I wished you to have the little book. I 
thought of your kindness — even at the last. If 
you ever go to Europe — see these two ladies. 
Alas! They have both forgotten poor Armand. 
If you can communicate with them, do so. I have 
failed to receive any replies to my letters, for 
nearly a year ! ” 

On one of the cards, was penciled the words 

My sister.” And the other, bore the name of 
of the Countess de Couci, an degante of the best 
Parisian circles. 

A month later, my official duties were to auction 
off the sketch case and violin of the dead gentle- 
man, as by due operation of law. I had decided 


THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 245 

to have the violin bid in for our commander as a 
personal relic, but, when the yellow-eyed Sneath 
bid forty dollars for the sketching case, I firmly 
met his cowardly eye. After a snappy conflict, I 
obtained it at ninety. And, the neat stone and 
substantial fence around the poor fellow’s grave 
were thus provided for. 

I passed long nights wondering why Sneath 
should have come to the front for the possession 
of the case, in which I found not a single paper. 
It was a beautiful Winsor & Newton artists’ case 
of the very best quality. I was puzzled, but an 
ugly feeling took possession of me when I later 
received from Paris two heart-broken letters. 
The sister of my dead friend boldly charged that 
her brother’s letters had been stolen for several 
months. There were several five-hundred-franc 
billets de banque in them. And, the sweet-faced 
Countess de Couci, before the roses had bloomed 
twice upon his grave, had told me all the sad 
story of Captain Armand de Gainville, of the fitat 
Major of one of the French Divisions in Algeria. 
An unfortunate duel of honor, in which a socially 
powerful antagonist had been slain, caused him to 
flee to America. 

We were sure of his pardon from our gra- 
cious Imperatrice, but, he had madly enlisted in 
your service and so, was tied down for five years ! 
We feared to bring about his punishment by taking 
steps for his public discharge— and his enemies 
must have found him out ! I always wrote to him 


246 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARM AND CAIRE 

twice a month ! We were preparing to visit Cali- 
fornia incognito, for his heart-rending letters some- 
times reached us. Who was his enemy ? May God 
reward him for breaking two loving women’s 
hearts. Armand was to have been my husband ! ” 

I dared not indulge my suspicions and, I dared 
not tell them that he died a suicide ! The work of 
the scoundrel who drove Sergeant Armand Caire 
to madness had been but too well done. 

Five years later, on the eve of a departure to 
Europe, I was hurriedly summoned to a city hospi- 
tal to see a poor wretch who had been crushed by 
some falling timbers. It was Sneath, the dis- 
charged soldier! The moment when he saw me, 
he covered his face and groaned, “ It’s all up with 
me now 1 I may as well tell you all ! I robbed 
Sergeant Caire’s letters to get even. I was in the 
quartermaster’s office, I handled the mail, I stole 
his outgoing letters, too ; and, I got eight hundred 
dollars out of the French letters. But, his face 
always haunted me 1” He whispered to me where 
he had hidden them. “ Let the women have the 
letters he wrote. God may have mercy on me, 
now ! ” With a low groan, his spirit passed, and 
the mystery of Sergeant Armand Caire was at 
an end 1 I saw the two loving women later, happy 
even in their sorrow, when 1 gave them the last 
words of their loved one. 


How We Court=martialed 
Sergeant Maloney 

BY 

RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 



HOW WE COURT-MARTIAL- 
ED SERGEANT MA- 
LONEY. 


It is nearly thirty years since the fate of Ser- 
geant Michael Maloney, the ranking duty Ser- 
geant of “ K ” company of the battalion of 
Regulars to which I was attached, trembled in the 
balance before a stern Garrison Court-martial. I 
unloose the gates of Memory, and forgetting my 
silvered hair and wrinkled brow, see myself, once 
more, the slim Lieutenant bending under the 
august honors of Recorder of that memorable 
tribunal. 

It was upon a distant and lonely shore, far from 
the gray-castled fortress of West Point, where we 
assembled to try the “ malignant”; in fact, a few 
miles further west, would have plumped our 
double company out into the blue Pacific ocean. 
From our sterile island in the harbor of San Fran- 
cisco, we could gaze out through the Golden 
Gate and mark the happy ships “ whose course 
had run, from lands of snows to lands of sun.” 
The storm flag upon old Fort Point, streaming 
out in defiance of all the world and his brother, 
cheered me by day. I was “ blushing under 


250 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 

budding honors” in those fall days of “sixty- 
eight,” and, while by day, the golden sheen of my 
staff epaulettes and the martial clank of my sword 
reminded me that I was no longer a book-de- 
vouring Cadet, the dragging over that rocky isle 
inspecting sentinels on post, in the midnight hours 
through sleet and storm, was a gentle prelude to 
other desdgremens of the service. But, I owed a 
great debt to Uncle Sam for nurture and educa- 
tion and, in my poor way, I was then beginning to 
pay it off by installments, which have since 
stretched out to ten long years, in various duties 
and changing stations, military and civil. 

The junior of four commissioned officers at- 
tached to the double company, my modest rank 
gave me the exclusive privilege of being Recorder 
of this memorable court, and copying neatly in- 
terminable folios of “ proceedings ” from my 
own notes laboriously penciled in the Court. I 
had a monopoly of the work, the Brevet Colonel 
and Post Commander wore the “brow of Jove,” 
and my two First Lieutenants evidently enjoyed 
the studious Second Lieutenant’s labors, while 
they whiled away their leisure in sketching 
the “ trembling malefactors ” and the “ indefati- 
gable Recorder.” I drew a “ full hand ” at duty, 
when I reported on that island, “fresh from the 
Academy.” Post Adjutant, Post Treasurer, Drill 
Master, Officer of the Day, and a few more 
“functions” made me believe that “life was earnest, 
life was real,” “ when I first put the uniform on ! ” 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 25 1 

A multiplicity of little odds and ends fell to my 
share, and my first Court-martial ” is recalled 
to-day by a memory of the pride with which I 
donned the golden epaulettes and cocked hat, with 
strict full dress, for the first time on duty. The 
fact that I had sported my entire regalia, less 
sw'ord and spurs, at the swellest ball of the season 
in San Francisco did not count. I was only called 
to that “ pahty,” to exhibit the perfections in the 
dance of some of ‘‘ California’s fairest daughters, 
but, when we court-martialed Sergeant Michael 
Maloney I was on duty,” and, I deeply regretted, 
being a “ mounted officer,” that I had no charger 
to ride the three hundred yards from “ Officers’ 
Row ” to the barrack room hall, where poor 
Maloney writhed under my accusing eye, as I 
read the charges and specifications against him in 
an appropriately hollow voice ! 

Courts-martial are very solemn tribunals. 
The memories of the quick dispatch of the high- 
souled Nathan Hale, the stern adjudication of the 
fate of the gallant and unfortunate Andre, the 
“ maimed rites ” of the council condemning the 
chivalric Due d’Enghien, the mutiny of the Nore^ 
and the awful tragedy of the brig Somers, vi\2iy recur 
to some of my readers. The doom adjudged 
by these stern tribunals is apt to be as merciless as 
the swing of the scimetar of a Bashi-Bazouk, and 
I have always greatly respected the acumen of 
Monsieur le Marechal Bazaine in slipping away 
at night and reaching Spain safely before the mili- 


252 HOW WE court-martialed SERGEANT MALONEY 

tary executioners of France reached out for him 
to execute an ex post facto sentence of death. 

I was fresh from the extremely entertaining lec- 
tures of Professor French and Major General 
Alexander S. Webb at West Point when we 
court-martialed the unfortunate Maloney. Not 
only the lectures of these great expounders of 
military law were fresh in my ardent mind, but 
much lore extracted from Halleck, Kent, De Hart, 
Benet, and many other now by me, forgotten 
“ authorities.” I had listened with awe for four 
long years to the reading of the ^‘Articles of 
War,” and, I had observed with pain that there 
were just ninety-nine of them, and that many of 
them ominously ended “ to be shot to death with 
musketry.” “ That’s a very neat way of putting it. 
Savage,” had remarked laughing Benny Hodgson 
to me on one occasion at West Point, when a local 
excitement in the corps of cadets had caused 
Colonel Henry W. Black, U. S. Army, “to favor 
us with his company at dinner,” for the purpose 
of reading, in a rich rolling voice, those same very 
ably drawn articles ! When Colonel Black pre- 
pared to lead away his half dozen staff officers and 
leave us to our interrupted meal, he briskly turned 
around to deliver a last word of cheer. “You 
have heard the articles, young gentlemen ! They 
will be strictly carried out to the letter, if there 
is any more trouble ! ” I pause here to say that 
“ there was no more trouble,” but, laughing Benny 
retorted, sotto voce^ “ It seems if the enemy don’t 
shoot us, our friends will ! ” 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 253 

Poor Benny Hodgson ! It was only eight years 
after that remark when he was obligingly shot 
to death with musketry ” by the grim Sioux war- 
riors on the Rosebud, as he bravely held the ford 
in front of Reno’s Hill, at the Little Big Horn, 
laying down his life in its youthful flower to save 
the wounded of his command from the scalping 
knife ! The Seventh Cavalry lost its brightest 
face when Benny died ! 

And so, with a knowledge of the gravity of mili- 
tary law, I was in a serious mood when I took my 
seat at the Recorder’s table to administer this 
lex talionis in the case of the recusant Sergeant 
Michael Maloney “ and such other prisoners as 
might be properly brought before the Court.” 
The Company Clerk had arranged all in due order 
in the “fair chamber looking east.” There was 
store of foolscap paper and lakelets of ink. Books, 
authorities, and Army Regulations were there to 
serve as “ lamps to my feet.” I do not yet know 
who added “ Charles O’Malley,” “ Laus Veneris,” 
by Algernon Charles Swinburne — The Nautical 
Ephemeris,— and the San Francisco City Direc- 
tory to my official books, but a beautiful “ Treatise 
Upon the Resection of the Hip Joint” (with 
plates) led me to believe that the Post Surgeon 
kindly wished to help me out ! 

I was “helped out ” for a year or more in many 
ways on joining my command by those seniors 
who seem to delight “ to make things pleasant for 
a young graduate.” If they did not always sue- 


254 HOW WE court-martialed sergeant MALONEY 

ceed, they tried to, and — so, we will let it go at 
that ! 

At parade, the evening before, I had read the 
solemn order of the Post Commander convening 
the Court, and every man jack of the four pla- 
toons quivered visibly at my impressive manner 
of rendering the will of our “ war lord ! ” He was 
only a Brevet Colonel, but he ranked us all out of 
sight, and as Post Commander, we were the 
“ sheep of his pasture,” and as far as peace of mind 
goes, he held us in the hollow of his hand.” No 
civilian can understand the dread black shadow 
of the Commander’s displeasure hanging over the 
unfortunate officer or soldier. There are a 
“ thousand and one ” delightful “ Arabian nights ” 
and days of torture which a Commander can in- 
flict, and, even now as I write, I recall the wide- 
spread pleasure in a “ gallant Regiment ” of our 
army to see its Commander go up to the well- 
merited stars. But, as he has made regimental 
life one glad, sweet song and dance for the whole 
period since the war, they rejoice as one man, 
and now feel that the “ weary are at rest ! ” 

Denied the unfeigned pleasure of hearing Mr. 
Gounod’s very proper “ Marche Funebre ” appro- 
priately rendered “ by the band ” over his cold 
“ corpus,” the officers of this happy Regiment can 
only remember that “ parting is such sweet sor- 
row,” and, with one voice, decide to omit the 
“loving cup” presentation which seems to spread 
over our benighted land like the march of the 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 255 

Canada thistle, or the twin blessings of bloomers 
and bicycles ! 

In that light-hearted Regiment to-day, many a 
man in reading the order promoting their “stern 
Commander ” will realize the beauties of those 
last lines penned by Thackeray’s master hand: 
“ And, my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss ! ” 

At the parade when I thundered forth the 
bringing to the bar of the unlucky Maloney, every 
man of the command knew that the Post Com- 
mander “ had it in ” for the Sergeant. He was 
“in close confinement” in his barrack room, — only 
spared the disgrace of the guard house. For, the 
three yellow stripes of the Sergeant’s chevrons 
were still upon his manly arms. He could not be 
deprived of them without “ due course of law,” 
for he had a warrant signed by our distinguished 
Battalion Commander, a Major General of the 
piping times when the Stars and Bars flew in defi- 
ance of the extremely energetic Mr. Edwin M. 
Stanton, and greatly to that gentleman’s daily an- 
noyance. Though Michael Maloney, by a figment 
of the law, languished like Eugene Aram, “ with 
gyves upon his wrists,” he was simply interned in 
barracks. He was not as sadly off as that pitiable 
creation of the great magician Kipling, the abject 
“ Danny Deever,” whose uniform was torn off and 
buttons cut away. But the sorrowing son of Erin, 
Michael Maloney “ of Ours ” was in the toils, for 
all that! 

It’s very well lor Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan 


256 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 

to airily remark “ Never mind the why and where- 
fore.” The “ why and wherefore ” threatened to 
reduce Michael Maloney to the ranks, to drop his 
pay from forty-three dollars a month to nothing — 
and to affix a ten-pound ball by a ten-foot chain to 
his robust Milesian leg. 

The prospect of Maloney spending the rest of 
his enlistment in assisting the ingenious officers of 
the Corps of Engineers to transform Alcatraz 
Island into a gun platform was strictly in the line 
of his profession, but while they labored with level 
and theodolite, he, as a military prisoner, if con- 
victed, would operate a wheelbarrow, under the 
guard of a sentinel, and sleep in a cold cell with 
forfeited pay, a dishonorable discharge, and 
meagre rations of truly Spartan simplicity. 

In the evening, before Maloney’s trial the three 
juniors gathered in my quarters to discuss the 
forthcoming Court proceedings. Three handsome 
double houses were the homes of five bachelor 
officers, the Commandant dwelling in awful majesty 
alone in one of them. It was due to the presence 
of the Surgeon, my house mate, that some “ facts 
as to Maloney ” were judiciously sowed on fertile 
ground — cast, as it were, like bread upon the bitter 
waters of Marah then engulfing the luckless 
Sergeant. 

I can recall the winning face of our senior 
First, who was to be President of this Garrison 
Court. Poor Jack! The only human realization 
of an Ouida hero whom I ever met! He had all 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 257 

the talents — all the graces ! “ Alcibiades ” I fondly 
nicknamed him. Spirited, daring, and graceful, he 
always affected the absence of heart, and yet, in a 
few brief years, he ran the race of life, and died 
untimely, leaving before him a half-finished written 
message to the woman whom he loved, the last 
thing he saw in life ! Not in battle or storm did 
he lay down his life of promise, and more than one 
heart was broken when handsome Jack died alone ! 

The second member was a man with a heart of 
gold and of a taciturn demeanor; for the promise of 
his distinguished career was then hidden in his 
level head. I, as the junior, let my superiors go 
over the ground and kept silent. 

There was no possible discussion as to the facts 
in the case of Sergeant Michael Maloney. When 
“ Buster ” (our second) knocked out his pipe and 
strolled away to bed, he sadly said : ‘‘I’m afraid 
poor Maloney is in for it ! ” And yet the senior, the 
Surgeon, and I lingered, in a chat, artfully drawn 
out by the kind hearted Doctor, an Irishman, him- 
self. 

It was the old, old story ! There was no woman 
in the case, although the military Pandora after- 
ward fumbled in her box and gave us a good- 
looking woman of humble rank on that island who 
kicked up as much rumpus as that classic member 
of the haut canaille^ Helen of Troy ! 

Take the story of “ honest Michael Cassio,” and 
substitute “ Mike Maloney,” for Othello’s ancient, 
and “ the incident is closed,” as the Frenchman 
aptly says. 


258 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 


A few days before the council, Sergeant Maloney 
had departed on a three days’ pass for San Fran- 
cisco, and he was then a miracle of military neat- 
ness! His well-brushed dark and light blue 
uniform, his gleaming shoulder scales, the pride of 
his heart ; his yellow chevrons and blue service 
stripes, his artfully polished military platter-shaped 
shoes, his neat forage cap, all marked him as 
destined to play havoc with the susceptibilities of 
certain young colleens ” in the city, whose 
hearts grew lighter when he came. 

When he sailed away on the government steamer 
McPherson he had a complacent smile on his face, 
and — alas — a five-dollar bill in his pocket ! I was 
Officer of the Day. I received his salute, examined 
his pass, and bade him (mentally) go forth to meet 
his Norah Creina, in peace, for the paymaster had 
“been around,” and Maloney was justly entitled 
to his three days off. 

We had nourished high hopes of Michael! The 
Orderly Sergeant of the double company. Hand, 
was soon to be discharged. Nothing but the fact 
of Maloney being a bit shy on “ book learning ” 
could prevent his promotion to the place of the 
retiring Hand, and, adding a lozenge to his chev- 
rons and five dollars a month to his pay. The 
whole effective control of the company would pass 
into Maloney’s brawny hands, and he had well 
earned the distinction. 

For, in the dark days from ’61 to ’65, Michael, a 
lad born of Irish parents in our “ regulars,” nur- 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 259 

tured as a drummer boy, had cheerfully bitten 
cartridges and fired his old Harper’s Ferry mus- 
ket cheerfully in the face of almost anything visi- 
ble ! He remembered the flaming ridge of Gaines’s 
Mills, the bloody slopes of Malvern, the railroad 
cut at the second Bull Run, the peach orchard at 
Antietam, the bloody angle at Gettysburg, and he 
swore by McClellan, Fitz John Porter, and Gen- 
eral Sykes. Mike Maloney was game up to Appo- 
mattox, and the blowing to pieces of his comrades 
of Sykes’ Regular Brigade, had at last forced the 
honors of a Sergeancy upon him. 

I had seen him march up the hill at West Point 
when the depleted command came home from 
the war, with its ranks opened to show the vacant 
places of the lamented dead, and the band playing 
‘‘Ain’t You Glad to Get Out of the Wilderness?” 

Now, I had been Officer of the Day on Maloney’s 
return, and I was astonished to see him debark in 
an unkempt condition and silently make his way 
back to barracks. Turning and following his re- 
treating steps, candor forces me to say that his 
unsteady legs described the grapevine twist ! I 
had passed the regrettable discovery over in 
silence, and I tried not to notice the careless wag- 
ging of his curly pate, the vacant smile on his 
honest face, and the relaxed mouth, ordinarily 
snapped close in a Milesian triangle. He was “all 
there,” but slightly scattered ! There were a 
dozen other soldiers on the boat returning from 
pass — and some of them were habitual drinkers. 


26o how we court-martialed sergeant MALONEY 


but, strangely, none of them were leery ” on this 
day. 

It was at mess that evening while we five officers 
were being neatly served with our cosy dinner, 
that the sounds of a couple of shots rang out on 
the evening air ! 

“ That’s for you, Mr. Officer of the Day,” curtly 
said the Colonel. Grasping my sword, and run- 
ning over the parade, followed by a Corporal’s 
guard, I found that Sergeant Maloney was locked 
in his room. With a spring, the Corporal of the 
Guard and myself went through the door! We 
were obliged to temporarily place the excited 
Sergeant in the guard house for safety. 

It was the work of that universal devil — the in- 
visible spirit of wine ! There was no excitement 
in the barracks, for a real discipline was always 
maintained, but, on my return to report the un- 
happy “ break ” to the Colonel, I found that Ser- 
geant Hand had already reported to the Com- 
mander that he had been fired upon twice, from 
Maloney’s window, although he saw no one. I 
was at once directed to return and secure the Ser- 
geant’s gun. It was easy for me to see, a half 
hour later, that some quick-witted friend had 
cooled the barrel and wiped the piece out in the 
interval since the shooting. A kindly master 
stroke of old soldier wit ! 

But, it all looked black enough, on this night 
before the Court, until the Surgeon astonished Jack 
and myself with a few well-put observations. 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 261 


I’m not on the Court,” he said, between puffs at 
his pipe, ‘‘and I can show you a dirty bit of ground 
hog work ! There’s no love lost between Hand, 
who is an American, wears Burnside whiskers, 
and hopes for some future favor by bootlicking the 
Commander, and poor Mike. Sergeant Hand has 
saved money. He gets a heavy ‘ travel pay ’ and 
hopes to be made Post Sutler, and so grow rich. 
In the hospital, I get all the men’s chatter through 
my Hospital Steward. Hand has some crony rec- 
ommended for promotion, among the ten sergeants 
and ten corporals, and — Maloney was never drunk 
before ! Now, I can almost swear that poor 
Mike’s enemies put all those men on to him, who 
went off on pass, to drink successively with him, 
and so, lead him away ! 

“ They, the old soakers, all came home sober. 
Poor Maloney has been victimized, and he may 
have realized his condition, and sees now what he 
lost. The real author of the job is this slick Ser- 
geant Hand, or his friends. Maloney, in despera- 
tion, may have taken a couple of cracks at him, 
but, Rand did not see the shooter ! Maloney’s 
gun was clean ! I think it’s a case for ‘ executive 
clemency ! ’ ” 

“If I believed this,” cried the warmhearted 
Jack, “ he shall not lose his stripes. See here. 
Sawbones, you can talk to each of us alone, about 
this. Find out what you can, and we will see— 
what we shall see ! ” 

The undercurrent of garrison life is often 


262 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 


stranger than the official flood tide, foaming along 
on the surface. When the Garrison Court assem- 
bled the next day at ten, there was a peculiar in- 
terest manifested by every one on the post. But 
the three members of the Court never exchanged 
a word until the Court was called to order in the 
presence of the commanding officer and the guard 
and orderly as sole spectators. With due solem- 
nity, the prisoner was introduced, and Sergeant 
Michael Maloney entered far paler than when he 
fired point blank into the faces of Hood’s Texans 
springing up the rugged slopes at Gaines’s Mills ! 
He was a model of soldierly neatness and sym- 
metry, devoid only of the treasured Sergeant’s 
sword upon which he had expended three years 
of polishing, till its Corinthian brass mountings 
gleamed like the gold of Ophir ! 

His sad eyes roved over the silver castles on the 
epaulets of his three judges, and, in an awe- 
struck silence, he heard the orders appointing the 
Court read, and listened to the swearing-in of the 
Court and the Recorder. When asked if he had 
an objection to being tried by any particular 
member of the Court, his eyes rested upon all of us 
in succession. He bowed his head in manly nega- 
tion, which was simply touching. I rejoiced that, 
as a Garrison court, we could not administer the ex- 
tremest penalties, for I had heard more of the 
sneaking conspiracy which had effected the sim- 
ple Sergeant’s ruin. I fancied that the Surgeon 
had also privately enlightened my colleagues ! 


HOW WE court-martialed SERGEANT MALONEY 263 

It was a painful task for me to read the charge- 
under the ninety-ninth article : “ Conduct preju- 
dicial to good order and military discipline.” The 
specification, which I had been forced to draw 
with much useless flourish of antiquated verbiage, 
was strong enough to fell an ox. It was after this 
interesting ceremony that Handsome Jack, looking 
like a robust Cupid-in-arms, informed the prisoner 
that he was entitled to the assistance of counsel, 
to be selected from the military persons of the 
garrison. 

There was a convulsive sob racking brave 
Michael Maloney’s breast, as he shook his head 
and brushed his face with the sleeve marked with 
four service-stripes. 

He declined the assistance of counsel, and I 
then, formally arraigned him, and was astounded 
to hear him, in a broken voice, plead guilty to the 
specification, and guilty to the charge. The three 
members of the court gazed blankly at each other. 
The pleas cut off the necessity of the introduction 
of evidence, in fact, there was no official evidence 
available, save the excited condition of the man 
when his room door was forced. 

Our Commander hastily left us at this legal sur- 
render of the unhappy man. 

I deemed it my duty to inform the prisoner that 
he was entitled to make a brief oral or written 
statement by virtue of his plea. The poor fellow 
stood ''before his betters” and huskily said: 
" Gentlemen ! I leave it all to you ! I have always 


264 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 

tried to be a good soldier, and it’s idle for me, a 
poor Sergeant, to say that I’m not bound to know- 
good order and military discipline. I’ve know my 
whole duty these many years. I was born in the 
army!” 

There was an awkward silence as the prisoner 
was returned to his quarters in charge of the 
guard, and the last look of his sorrowful face was 
a good-by — a long good-by to his chevrons ! He 
had opened the door to his own degradation as 
far as rank and promotion went. One fault, the 
fault of the hot-headed and gallant Celt, the one 
spot upon his faultless record had marred the 
clean record of years of brave service, of drudg- 
ery, and grinding privation ! 

In silence, I prepared a dozen or more folded 
ballots, all of similar appearance, marking them 
“ Guilty ” and ‘‘ Not Guilty.” As became the 
younger, I voted first, and handed the hat to the 
others for their secret selection and vote. The 
voting was done without discussion. When the 
record of the votes upon the specification and 
charge was correctly announced by me, there 
was a majority recording the fact that the absent 
prisoner was not guilty of either the charge or the 
specification ! An astounding verdict 1 

There is a wholesome special obligation of the 
oath of the Judge Advocate and Recorder which 
absolutely forbids him from disclosing the vote of 
a ‘‘ particular member.” From that day to this, 
I have never known who cast the majority votes 


HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 265 

which in face of a plea of guilty ” declared 
Sergeant Michael Maloney, of Ours to be innocent ! 
I may have had some personal ideas, but my oath 
would not allow me to indulge in “ vain con- 
jectures.” There were other prisoners tried 
afterwards before this famous Court, who re- 
ceived very moderate punishments for trifling 
offenses. 

When the result of the trial of Maloney was re- 
luctantly announced to the commanding officer, in 
answer to a direct question at mess, I was glad 
that Handsome Jack gallantly “ leaped into the 
chasm.” The Colonel rose and “left the rich 
meats all untasted,” storming out of the room! 
For three days, we were denied the light of his 
countenance, save when he sent his orderly for us, 
officially. I was happy and busy in my duplex 
functions and I escaped the storm. 

As Post Adjutant, I was gruffly ordered to re- 
lease “ Maloney from arrest and restore him to 
duty — chevrons and all 1 ” As Recorder of the 
Court, I was bidde not to make up the record of 
this case of legally “squaring the circle.” The 
proceedings in re Maloney were all quashed. 
Lightly as the roe, I sped away to the sergeant’s 
room. When I entered, he had the haggard look 
of impending disaster. When I left the strong 
man sobbing at his table, he had stopped an im- 
promptu oration while saying: “Liftinint! Tell 
tlie gintlemen av the Coort — ’ for, his ffood of 
pent-up sorrows swayed him as the wild rain gusts 
shake the bending pines ! 


266 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 


‘‘ Maloney’s bad break” was his only one ! His 
rosy face shone out in ranks for years, untinged 
with “ spiritus frmnenti^'' and yet, he did not get 
his Orderly Sergeant’s lozenge until a long year 
later. Sergeant Hand had left us for good and all. 
I was cut off the next year in the Arizona deserts 
with four of our men on duty, to face a possible 
starvation, when I found a bullet-headed sapper 
secretly adding his allowance of food to mine by 
hiding it under my desert pillow. “ What do you 
mean by this?” I demanded of the shamefaced 
Riley. He mumbled: “You gave Mike Maloney 
a square deal! We had all got round him to fill 
him up just for a lark ! There was them as would 
ruin him, we found out, later ! Damme if I know 
how you found him ‘Not guilty’; but — we was 
all played on — you did the square thing ! ” 


f/icd Monthly 


JUNE, 1900 


p^r Annum 


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/yi ‘/yi •yn‘yjn-xn /ys-/vs-/'/^ /vo rn'/n /-/o-yys 





Tales of Adventure 

BV 


COL. R. H. SAVAGE 

! 


>^UTHOR OF 


“My Official Wife,” “An Exile from London,” etc. 



NEW YORK 

THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 

3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET 


mm:-' m M'.. 

vav .^8».-- -r/z -y 


MianmuiPTriTTintiiM 

Entered at the Postoffice at New York as second-class mail matter. 



My Official Wife. 


BY 

Col. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE. 


What America says of it. 

One of the most entertaining books of the season. 
It reads strangely like one of Gunter’s masterpieces.” 

—■Rochester Sunday Times ^ June 14th, 1891. 

“ In it the most exciting complications arise, making 
the story one of absorbing interest.” 

—Cleveland Plaindealer^ June 14th, 1891. 

“ It would be hard to find a more exciting 
story than ‘ My Official Wife.’ A series of events 
and situations which increase in excitement, 
mystery and danger. A book through which the 
reader will dash with wild eagerness.” 

—NEW YORK HERALD, June 21st, 189 U 

What Europe says of It. r 

Far beyond the average. Exceedingly powerful 
and exciting.” — Newcastle Chronicle, July loth, 1891. 

One of the ablest of its kind.” 

— Carlisle Patriot, July iith^ 1891. 

” Deserves to be one of the most popular tales of the 
season.” — The Morning Post, London, July 15th, 1891. 

‘'Plenty of dash and go.” 

— Saturday Review, July i8thj 1891. 

" Wonderfully clever,” 

—LONDON TIM ES, August lOth^ 1891m 

A delightful story.” — Tauchnitz, Leipsig. 


BOR SALE EVERYWHERE, 
ME HOME PUBLISHING CO.. 3 m Mtt Street. H. L 


A Captive Princess 


BY 

COL. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 

AUTHOR OF 

“ My Official Wife,” ‘‘ An Exile from London,” 

ETC., ETC. 

Cloth, ^i.oo . . . . Paper, 50 Cents 


“ Col. Savage has availed himself of his travels in Russia and other 
parts of northern Europe and his evidently close observation and study of the 
political and police systems of Russian imperialism to write a story, whose 
scenes are laid chiefly in an island of independent sovereignty in the Baltic 
and in St. Petersburg and other places in the land of the Czar. It introduces 
us into baronial halls and royal palaces, to balls and fetes, to princes, prin- 
cesses and high officials in military and civil life, to some Circassians and 
Cossacks, to the service of espionage with all its nefarious schemes, plots, 
duplicity and decoy deceptions, and to the grasping spirit of a government 
ever ready to serve its ambition for aggrandisement by methods honorable 
or dishonorable. It gives an insight into governmental proceedings in the 
secret service department, and shows how completely a suspected person, or 
one whose influence must be diminished, or whose wealth is coveted, is beset 
by spies eager to entangle him in the meshes of the law or to subject him to 
the imperious will of the reigning autocrat. There are love scenes in the 
romance, of course, but they do not constitute the warp and woof of the story ; 
they are drawn in a dignified way, and are free from the sickly sentimental- 
ism and spooniness which characterize so many modern novels. A scrap of 
interesting history appears occasionally, and there is a good deal of unveiling 
of Muscovite manners and morals. Public attention at this time is largely 
directed to Russia’s designs in Asiatic land-grabbing, and particularly to her 
purposes in regard to China. It seems that a nation which owns one-half the 
area of Europe, one-third that of Asia, and one-seventh that of the entire 
globe, might be satisfied with the territory already possessed. But she evi- 
dently is not, and we feel that there is deep significance in the colonel’s mas- 
terful arraignment. ‘The power whose hand is even nowon the throat of 
China, the power destined to soon swallow up Persia, Norway, and Sweden, 
and to rule from Peking to Cracow and from Constantinople to far Arch- 
angel ! Germany’s dreaded neighbor, the master of the Turk, the insincere 
ally of glittering, cafe-governed France, the hereditary foe of England, and 
the friend of no other land on earth. The awful domain of the white Czar ! ’ " 
—Home Journal^ New York. 


For sale everywhere, or sent postpaid on receipt of price, by 

T HE H OME Publishing Company 

3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK 


to 




GLONEL RICHARD 
HENRY SAVAGE pre- 
sents in his latest dashing 



novel, Brought to Bay,'' 
a vivid picture of the world’s 


^ struggle before the throne of 
^ the modern god of Gold ! 


Constantinople, Paris, London, and Sheffield 


bring together two brothers, the offspring of a 
Franco-English marriage, who become rivals 
for the possession of a New Mexico copper 
mine, an English title descending with a leg- 
acy of hate, and the hand of a beautiful woman. 
“Texas Dave,” the unwilling judge, unties the 
gordian knot of an intrigue of love and mur- 
der, in which his unfortunate “pardner” shows 
himself “game” when brought to bay! It is a 
novel of an exceptional and thrilling interest, 
one that is to be read through — at a sitting. 

Cloth, $1.00 Paper, 50 cents 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on 


receipt of price. 




The Home Publishing Co. 


3 East Fourteenth Street New York 



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